Prince Andrew, the younger brother of King Charles III, has been caught up in a suspected case of Chinese spying, after a British court upheld a decision to bar from the country a Chinese man who was a “close confidant” of his on national security grounds.
The ruling by the court, issued on Thursday, found that the 50-year-old man, referred to only as H6, had a web of relationships with Andrew and other senior British officials. He also had links to the Chinese Communist Party and front organizations that seek to project Chinese influence in foreign countries, the court said.
“The Applicant had been in a position to generate relationships with prominent U.K. figures and senior Chinese officials that could be leveraged for political interference purposes,” said the court, known as the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, in a 53-page ruling.
The Chinese man, whose identity was sealed by the court pending the outcome of any legal appeal, had studied in Britain and started a company to advise British companies about investment opportunities in China. He was retained as an agent for Prince Andrew, who had worked a decade earlier as a special envoy for trade and investment for the British government.
Dominic Hampshire, then a senior adviser to Andrew, confirmed in a 2021 letter to the man that he “could act on behalf of the Duke in engagements with potential partners and investors in China.” Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, also has the title Duke of York.
Security services obtained the letter after seizing a mobile phone and other digital devices from the Chinese man after he was stopped at the border in November 2021. He told the authorities he considered Britain his “second home.”
On Feb. 16, 2023, he was removed from a flight to London from Beijing and told that the British authorities were in the process of making a decision to exclude him from the country.
He appealed that decision by the home secretary at the time, Suella Braverman, which led to the ruling issued on Thursday.
The court said the letter from Mr. Hampshire, and other data from the man’s phone, suggested that he could obtain leverage on behalf of the Chinese state because he was “in a position to generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent U.K. figures.”
In another letter, which noted that the man had been invited to a birthday party for the prince, Mr. Hampshire wrote, “You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship.”
He added, “Outside of his closest internal confidants, you sit at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.” The letter noted that the man had helped get “people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor.”
The court concluded that he had not been truthful about the extent of his relationship with Andrew, which had a “covert and clandestine” element. The immigration commission had intended to lift the order sealing the man’s identity when it released the decision, but a divisional court ordered that it be maintained until a final resolution of his appeal.
The man, who once worked as a junior civil servant in China, has denied having ties to the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party or the United Front Work Department, a party-linked group that gathers intelligence and seeks to influence prominent people outside China.
Prince Andrew could not be reached for comment. Buckingham Palace declined to comment, in keeping with its policy of not discussing Andrew since he relinquished his royal duties in 2022 after he became embroiled in a sexual abuse case stemming from his association with a notorious sexual predator, Jeffrey Epstein.
In a statement, the Chinese embassy in London condemned the allegations in the court ruling as an attempt to “smear China and sabotage normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.K.”
For the royal family, the news is the latest in a skein of embarrassing revelations about Andrew, a onetime war hero whose dashing lifestyle has long since devolved into a morass of unsavory associations and allegations.
In 2022, Andrew settled a lawsuit brought against him by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who accused him of raping her after she had been trafficked as a teenager by his friend, Mr. Epstein.
Andrew, who paid a substantial but undisclosed financial settlement, did not admit to any of Ms. Giuffre’s allegations.
Since that lawsuit and his links to Mr. Epstein have seeped into the public, Andrew has been in a form of internal exile, stripped of his military titles and banished from royal duties.
He lives in Royal Lodge, a stately house on the grounds of the Windsor estate, though there are persistent reports that his brother Charles wants to evict him to smaller quarters.
The court ruling shed light on Andrew’s diminished status. It cited a 2021 document taken from the Chinese man’s phone that discussed talking points for a call between him and the prince. The document suggested that Andrew was hungry for deal-making opportunities in China.
“Really important not to set too high expectations,” the document said. “He is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything.”
Andrew’s combination of royal privilege and compromised personal situation would make him vulnerable to a Chinese foreign influence operation, said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.
“The Prince is also probably not as well supported and advised on the risk of Chinese infiltration as top-level military officers or government ministers,” Professor Tsang said. “But he is sufficiently senior, by birth, to be able to host nearly anyone he may like to invite.”
Worries about Chinese spying in Britain have flared in recent years, as the relationship between London and Beijing has chilled. In 2023, two men, including a 28-year-old who worked as a researcher in Parliament, were arrested and later charged with spying on behalf of the Chinese government. They denied the charges.
Among the lawmakers with whom the researcher had had limited contact was Tom Tugendhat, who later served as security minister in the last Conservative government. He told BBC Radio on Friday that Andrew’s case “demonstrates, I’m afraid, that the Chinese state is extremely clear” that its ambition is “to secure influence over foreign countries.”
“The United Front Work Department, which is a branch of the Communist Party, is seeking influence across the U.K. in everything across social, academic, financial, industrial and various other ways,” Mr. Tugendhat said.
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