Thread by @samdunningo

So, the cat is out the bag.

The question: What happened with Prince Andrew and China?

THREAD

First, a bit of context. Andrew had got a bit of practice going abroad and making friends with foreigners in his capacity as UK trade envoy, which ended after ten years in July 2011, when questions began to be asked about the Epstein connection

After a quiet few years, Andrew made his comeback in 2014, setting up an entrepreneurship competition called "Pitch@Palace". The idea was that Andrew would leverage his connections to invite rich and well-connected people to the Palace, where startup founders would pitch for £££

There have long been questions about Pitch@Palace. Things like this make a great scene for spies, influence agents, the corrupt, etc. In 2022 it was alleged that one P@P winner paid Andy >£1m as part of a £40m fraud connected to Turkish politics.
theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/a…

In 2016, Pitch@Palace set up shop in China. Now, nothing like this happens in China without official sanction. One P@P partner was the Chinese People's Institute for Foreign Affairs, part of the United Front Work Department, a CCP body.

The UFWD was then in the midst of a re-organisation, spurred by Xi Jinping, which saw it take over and reform what in China is known as 'Overseas Chinese affairs' (侨务), by which the CCP wants to instrumentalise people of Chinese origin abroad to serve its goals.

Helping to set up and run Pitch@Palace China was a certain Yang Tengbo 杨腾波, or Chris Yang, UK based.

For anyone versed in UFWD operations and with Mandarin skills (= far too few people in the UK), Yang was openly associated with UFWD.

https://x.com/geoff_p_wade/status/1504208404499529732?lang=en

As early as 2020, attention was drawn to the activities of Yang's consultancy, Hampton Group, in the press.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8…

Hampton and Yang were working with the Chinese government to run Pitch@Palace China.

Through the Pitch@Palace connection, Chinese investors (all with links to the state) were getting early dibs on British entrepreneurs working on cutting-edge startups in metal alloys for aerospace components, energy technology, genetics testing and more.

Meanwhile, Chinese startups were getting a foot in the door in the UK, where they could scout for talent and ill-protected IP. One of these has since been sued in Germany for IP theft.

There's much more to P@P and China - to be continued another time.

What do we learn today? The Times reports a "businessman" has been barred from the UK on national security grounds.

He had built a close relationship with Andrew...

Read the below, which is shocking:

“Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor.”

...

Looking at Pitch@Palace's company accounts, and it becomes clear that a lot of money started coming in as P@P China got going.

There is a need for transparency about Pitch@Palace China, about payments made to it from inside China, and about Andrew's relationship with Yang Tengbo.

(That's it, for now)

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