How Yang Tengbo, the alleged Chinese spy who befriended Prince Andrew, wormed his way to the very top of British society By GEORGE ODLING Published: 00:31, 17 December 2024 | Updated: 00:37, 17 December 2024 e-mail View comments 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. Operating in plain sight as an Anglophile Chinese businessman keen to forge meaningful links between the two nations, he infiltrated top institutions with astonishing success. Now that an order forbidding naming the alleged spy formerly known as H6 has been lifted at his own request, Yang’s incredible web of influence across British society can be disclosed for the first time.
A shadow gliding through the corridors of power, the diminutive businessman spent two decades quietly embedding himself into the fabric of UK politics , business, education, industry and royalty. So close was the 50-year-old to the Duke of York that he referred to himself in interviews with Chinese media as the ‘special envoy of Prince Andrew’. The duke invited him to his 60th birthday party in 2020 and appointed him head of the Chinese arm of his beloved Dragons’ Den-style project, Pitch@Palace, which used Buckingham Palace as the official address for the Hong Kong branch.
Yang was also photographed with Prince Michael of Kent at a UK China Business Leader Summit in June 2016 at Windsor Castle . But it wasn’t just members of the Roya.