December 18, 2024 - 7:00am
Other than to China watchers, the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) has until now attracted little interest, although Mao Zedong once described it as a “magic weapon” to increase the Party’s influence. That is set to change, for the cases of Prince Andrew’s friend and business partner Yang Tengbo and the alleged Chinese agent Christine Lee have suddenly thrust the UFWD to the forefront of British politics.
In a statement issued on Monday after he lost his legal bid against being banned from re-entering the country, Yang insisted: “I have done nothing wrong or unlawful and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded.” Earlier, while he was still fighting his case before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a three-judge tribunal with access to secret evidence from MI5 and MI6, Yang’s lawyers said there was “no open source evidence” he was “linked to the UFWD”, and that he had “no connection” to it or the Chinese Communist Party.
The tribunal disagreed, its judgment stating that when British officials examined Yang’s phone as he was stopped at the UK border, it included a letter addressed to the UFWD in Beijing, as well as a text message in which he admitted being one of its overseas members, discoveries that justified excluding him on grounds of national security.
Yet this was nothing like the whole of it. I have unearthed evidence from the Chinese web that suggests Yang’s involvement with the UFWD goes significantly deeper — and spans the whole period that he was involved with the prince. What’s more, he repeatedly made speeches at UFWD events in China, during which he spoke of the need to “cultivate international talents”. He also gave interviews to the Chinese press in which he praised the CCP government and its “grand vision”.
Besides this, Yang became an honorary member of the 48 Group Club, a UK-China friendship organisation founded in 1949 that hosts events and publishes reports and blogs praising the Chinese leadership. Its website contains a star-studded list of fellows including Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, who, the SIAC judgment says, “could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the Chinese State”. Also listed as a fellow on the website is Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former policy chief who is now Keir Starmer’s national security adviser. However, a Cabinet Office spokesperson denied this was true, telling me that “Jonathan is not and has never been a member of the 48 Group.”
The UFWD’s importance was highlighted in Hidden Hand: How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World, a book published in 2020 by the China experts Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg. A sprawling bureaucracy with many departments and offshoots, it has, they wrote, been central to the Communist Party’s mission for decades, practising “behavioural control and manipulation” while appearing “benign, benevolent and helpful”.
The group has always relied heavily on people of Chinese origin living and working abroad who do not formally work for the state — such as Yang. According to the authors, one of its main instruments in this field is the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), “a high-level advisory council that draws non-Party elements into the Chinese Communist Party’s orbit”.
Charlie Parton, who spent 22 years working in and on China for the Foreign Office and is now a senior adviser at the Council on Geostrategy, told me the key to understanding the UFWD is to see those who work with it as “agents of influence”. As such, besides shifting policy decisions, they act as “forward radars” for straightforward espionage, while helping to obscure the threat this poses.
In any event, Chinese media websites reveal that Yang was a delegate to the CPPCC in 2019. In March 2021, the Mandarin China Daily described him as “a representative of overseas Chinese” at the CPPCC and published an interview with him. In this, he hailed “the superiority of the Chinese system”, adding: “Over the past 100 years, the Chinese people have stood up, become rich, and become strong under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.”
A few months later, in November 2021, Yang was stopped and questioned by immigration officials when he tried to re-enter Britain, which had been his main home since 2002. It was then that some of the evidence of his involvement in the UFWD and his closeness to Prince Andrew were discovered on his mobile.
However, it did not deter him from taking part in further UFWD activity. One example was a speech he made at a CPPCC meeting in Beijing in November 2022. Billed as the chair of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in the UK, he said: “China needs to cultivate world-class talents, and the international community needs to cultivate talents who know China.” Overseas Chinese like him, he said, had a special role in helping the country develop science and technology. The following March, then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman decided to exclude Yang from the UK permanently. This, SIAC ruled, was reasonable, fair and lawful.
The UFWD also figures prominently in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal judgment issued yesterday, which ruled that M15 acted lawfully when it named the Parliamentary lobbyist Christine Lee as a threat to national security. Lee’s son Daniel Wilkes worked for the former Labour MP Barry Gardiner, while she arranged donations of £420,000 to his office. Another beneficiary was Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who received £5,000. According to a statement by MI5 made in 2022, Lee had “knowingly engaged in political interference and activities” on behalf of the UFWD, and the tribunal ruled that this “interference alert” did not infringe her human rights, although she has not been charged with espionage.
The timing of the two cases could not be more sensitive. Although in November Starmer became the first British prime minister to meet President Xi Jinping for six years, the Foreign Office is conducting a “China Audit” covering every aspect of Britain’s relationship with Beijing.
“We should give Prince Andrew a medal,” Charlie Parton told me. “He’s managed to achieve since this row began five days ago what some of us have been urging for more than five years — getting a government to put threats from China at the top of the political agenda.”
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SubscribeReform and some of the Cons (the ones not in charge for most of my lifetime) are the only political movements that don’t actively mistrust and work to destroy rootedness, security and identity.
“the reason potholes are never fixed is a lack of funding and council incompetence”
It’s because road maintenance is a licensed activity. and it’s illegal for anyone unlicensed to do the work. The certification is convoluted including things like a quality management system and audits in addition to the things you’d expect like material specifications. You can’t, as a competent adult, just fill in a hole.
The need for certification obviously limits the number of potential suppliers, which then, naturally, both pushes the price up and limits supply, creating backlogs due to the lack of sufficient certified suppliers. And since certification is an upfront expense, it acts as a barrier to entry for new suppliers, particularly for small businesses that do not have administrative ‘slack’ to afford to do the paperwork. Certification will always benefit larger suppliers as a result.
Now filling in a hole will need to comply with some basic standards, so it’s not a job for cowboys. But I would have thought a much simpler and cheaper process would be possible. Material could be bought ‘off-the-shelf’ to standards. Initial specific training just for pothole repair and how to do a good job could be provided for free by the council to interested parties (would it need more than a day?). And a council overseer could be employed to view the works as they take place to ensure they are competently done and then council certified for liability issues. A simpler process would allow smaller, local firms to offer services (perhaps at a fixed price), increasing supply, reducing prices and speeding up the number of repairs.
The ‘industry’, however would lobby against any such rationality – not only the existing contractors who have spent money on admin and training, but also the body of auditors, and all the specification and standards writers, the trainers, and the consultants and advisors who handhold the business through the certification processes. It’s in the interest of these groups to extend the requirements, possibly including hiring practices or sustainability. Certification becomes expensive, time-consuming and full of fees for ‘professionals’ and a long way away from the basic need to just fill in a hole.
Insightful comment.
We should definitely do as you say.
There is also, though, a question priorities. Until all the potholes are fixed, all MultiKulti outreach efforts and other non-essential council expenditure ought to be terminated.
Have you considered the issue of potholes identifying as Bumps?
I live in a village. We want our parish lengthsman back.
Oddly, all this bureaucracy over filling in holes brings forth exactly the very cowboys to do the job that no householder would ever employ. The road near me has had its potholes filled three times in eight years, and now awaits another load of tarmac sloshed roughly in the same holes
There was a scandal recently over the insulation of homes by registered suppliers, much of whose work was not only shoddy, but significantly below standard. And most of the work had been authorized and passed by council inspectors. Many of these homes are now unsellable. So even government registered suppliers are untrustworthy – as were the building inspectors at Grenfell.
How do we go forward when we cannot even trust our own government?
Aye, but who pays for it? 14 billion just to clear the backlog.
Rather enjoyed reading this.
But really, Poppy : “sandstone Cotswold villages” ! A subtle April Fool’s wind-up ?
Correct. Oolitic limestone in fact.
Really good piece.
Thank you, Poppy, for an acute piece of observation and analysis.
Lovely Poppy thank you. It does seem that English villages offer the only escape from grim national decline. However our Hampshire village is showing signs of creeping and unsettling change… the two over-sized care workers who cram into a little car and drive to administer ‘care’ to the unlucky elderly – in and out in minutes… the reckless drivers from Amazon and Evri…village feuds about the imposition of affordable housing… a new monstrous modern house to spoil the view…houses sitting empty as ordinary families appear unable now to afford four bedroomed homes with large gardens…. But the daffodils are heavenly.
As a native and resident of the north of England, i’ve recently had the opportunity to spend some time in a Hampshire village (not far from Winchester) and the difference in the quality of life was a real eye-opener, gorgeous and welcoming village pub included.
I hope your village survives the travails of what some call “progress”.
Poppy Sowerby is also proving to be an eye-opener. Having mainly written about the latest fads and trends amongst the younger generations (some of which, at least, was interesting) she’s beginning to expand her horizons; ironically enough, by reference to her roots. This article hits quite a few nails on heads.
It really seems like the price of housing is the cause, directly or indirectly, of half of our problems in the West.
Also, what’s with all the empty houses and apartments? NYC, where I live, is full of them.
“the reason potholes are never fixed is a lack of funding and council incompetence, neither of which would be helped by a Reform victory”
More likely, as in America, the reason infrastructure is always starved for attention and funding is that tax money is siphoned off into social engineering instead of civil engineering. In that sense, a Reform victory might well begin to turn the tide.
Fewer than 17% of the UK population live in what can accurately be described as ” rural areas” or villages. Which ever way the inhabitants vote or whatever their opinions are, they will never have as much sway with our politicians as urbanites.
In my rural idyll elections have been cancelled by the Labour national government at the request of the local Conservatives.
The thought of Mosques being built anywhere in England gives me the creeps, but the thought of them being built in the countryside makes me feel angry and very sad.
Yes indeed. Not far from my home is a very pretty, quintessentially English village, or rather it was quintessentially English. A few years ago some farm buildings on the edge of the village became a mosque, so it’s perhaps not surprising that the last census revealed the population of the village to be 25% Asian. Meanwhile, not far away, an old pub deep in the woods has become a Hindu “studies centre”.
But I do live in Slough – 25% white British at the last census – and not far from the London Borough of Hillingdon – 48% white – so perhaps this encroachment, dismaying though it is, is unsurprising.
Read the article: not in the countryside but in a town, like where churches are repaired, sometimes.