Last month, a serious issue dominated the British agenda: the infiltration of Chinese spies into Prince Andrew's inner circle. And therefore, a question about the extent of foreign spies' influence on members of the British monarchy, which has existed for over 1,000 years, has been raised. However, when these spies are from the East and especially from China, we may be witnessing a very rare occurrence, even a historic first over a thousand years.
According to many British experts, Andrew was in dire need of financial support due to reasons such as his insistence on living in his 30-room mansion and having to spend 12 million pounds ($15 million) to cover up the accusations of pedophilia in the context of the Epstein affair. It is thought that the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who has been establishing a network of relations and advancing step by step in the United Kingdom since he arrived as a student in 2002, may have benefited from this. However, Andrew also established close relations with China as a trade ambassador, praised China's Belt and Road Project and promoted Xi Jinping's propaganda book. Therefore, there are also comments that the Chinese may have benefited from his greed.
Andrew is described as someone who can open doors to many circles, as he is a relatively prominent and influential member of the royal family. Indeed, his senior advisor Dominic Hampshire once told Tengbo: “You sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
In fact, Tengbo has not only infiltrated the royal family but has also taken pictures with two former British prime ministers, David Cameron and Theresa May, and has these pictures framed and placed on his desk in his office. When Lord Cameron was the prime minister, Tengbo was invited to an event celebrating the Chinese New Year at No. 10. He paid some of the expenses of former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott during his trips to China. He has visited the royal palaces many times at Andrew’s invitation.
He also attended the Duke’s 60th birthday party at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park in 2020. The alleged Chinese spy was so close to Andrew that it was suggested he could act on the Duke’s behalf when dealing with potential clients in China. Court documents record he has formed an “unusual degree of trust” with Andrew.
Tengbo was also reportedly a member of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), a Chinese government arm used to gather intelligence, recruit agents and buy influence abroad. Some of the country's leading publications and experts looked at the picture in shock and described Andrew as a "useful idiot" for China. The Daily Mail's assessment of Tengbo's work was as follows: "If Yang Tengbo's mission was to penetrate the heart of the British establishment, then it must be said that he did an exceptional job."
Speaking to the Daily Mail, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “I am appalled. What were our security services doing? This man not only had access to the Duke, he has penetrated the heart of the British government, meeting prime ministers. He would have sent information he picked up to his masters in Beijing. When will they take the China threat seriously?”
Ian Collins, a commentator on the same channel, must have been very impressed by the incident and what China has achieved in recent years because he said: “The bid that intrigues me is the dominance of China. The emerging and growing and almost unstoppable dominance of China. I think within 10 years, we will be looking at China overshadowing the U.S. as the World’s biggest economy, and it won’t be one of those little blips in a graph that, you know, ‘between July 1 and July 9, China overtook the U.S.’ I think this will be perpetual. I think we’re likely to see a country taking even greater control and dominance over the World.” Collins also clearly concluded, "They’re dominating the flipping World.”
The following statements by security expert Will Geddes after the incident are also noteworthy: “The Chinese are very good at espionage. They’ve perfected the skills in doing this for many, many, many years. And how they do this is very surreptitiously. And it’s puddle jumping in a very simple term. What they do is they acquire or socially engineer a contact which is going to be in a good position that can then introduce them to someone who’s even in a better position. And very slowly and very gently again supported by what we call a legend or a cover story which will be substantiated with business contacts with other people that can verify them. They will them make their way up the greasy ladder to the targets that they will want to try and use their influence on in various shapes and forms.”
Tom Tugendhat, who was the minister of state for security between 2022 and 2024, served in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as an officer in the British army, was awarded various medals by the British state and has been a member of Parliament since 2015, also used the following interesting sentence among his many other observations: “Let’s not pretend that this is a one-off and you know, by identifying him suddenly we’ve uncovered some enormous network. No, no, no! He is merely the tip of the iceberg. Prince Andrew is merely the tip of the iceberg. They’re not the story. They’re an example of the story.”
“What’s in it for them is connections ... There will be a number of individuals that the use of his name will open particular doors for them. I don’t think he was the end target by any stretch of imagination ... He won’t be a party to any state secrets, he won’t be party to any political decisions. But Prince Andrew will have connections in those circles that by proxy of using Prince Andrew to open up those doors could give the Chinese opportunities to socially engineer information for their own benefit.”
The monarchy's future has also been open to discussion and commentary over the issue of the Chinese agent and Prince Andrew. Two important figures in the British media, Kate Mansey and Roya Nikkhah, experts on the palace and royal family, insider information and royal family, have made similar statements. The title of their Times Radio program is as follows: “Prince Andrew risks destroying the entire monarchy, palace insiders warn.” The Sun also defended this in its publication, sharing it with the headline, “Prince Andrew’s ‘spy’ scandal threatens to BRING DOWN Royal Family – it’s more damaging than Epstein.”
On the other hand, the Chinese side denied the allegations. Speaking to Times Radio, vice president of the Beijing-based Centre for China, Victor Gao, used these words: “From the Chinese perspective, U.K. is not an enemy, not a competitor, not a rival and China doesn’t care about what’s happening inside the British system. China is laser-focused on the U.S.”
Of course, it goes without saying that the British do not believe this. Because it has been seen that China has been conducting tremendous espionage activities against the U.K. for years and has achieved many things in the country. MI5 Director Ken McCallum described China’s espionage activities in the U.K. as “epic scale.” We should state that the work reflected in the news alone is enough to fill a book. In short, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the British are under a serious Chinese siege in one way or another.
