Prince Andrew\u2019s links to an alleged Chinese spy were detailed in documents released Friday by British courts, which included a statement from a former close aide to the prince about the duke\u2019s line of communication to China\u2019s president Xi Jinping. <\/p>\n
The 10-page statement from Dominique Hampshire in May of 2024 was part of a tranche of documents released by the courts following a request from numerous British media organizations regarding Prince Andrew\u2019s relationship to the alleged spy, Yang Tengbo. The documents are part of Yang\u2019s appeal of his exclusion from the UK in December, which he lost. <\/p>\n
Yang <\/strong>reportedly forged a close relationship with the prince and was the co-founder of Pitch@Palace China, which expanded the duke\u2019s Pitch@Palace initiative into China. <\/p>\n In a tribunal hearing in December that upheld the earlier decision to bar Yang from the UK, it was revealed that Yang was authorized to act on Prince Andrew\u2019s behalf during business meetings with potential Chinese investors in the UK. <\/p>\n Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman told parliament in December she took the decision to ban Yang from the UK \u201cbecause his presence posed a threat to our national security\u201d and was \u201cbased on the advice of MI5,\u201d the UK\u2019s domestic security agency. <\/strong> <\/p>\n Yang has denied any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n Hampshire also said Yang helped Prince Andrew draft letters to Xi discussing the Eurasia Fund, something Yang had described in his written evidence to the tribunal as a way to \u201cupgrade\u201d the duke\u2019s Pitch@Palace initiative \u201cinto an investment-type business, or a fund.\u201d He was also tasked with talking to \u201crelevant people\u201d in China, per British press agency PA. <\/p>\n \u201cThe royal household, including the late queen, were fully aware of this communication \u2013 it was certainly accepted and it may be fair to say it was even encouraged \u2013 it was an open channel of communication that was useful to have,\u201d Hampshire said in the statement. <\/p>\n Hampshire said he met twice with Prince Andrew and King Charles over the six months prior to giving his witness statement to discuss \u201cwhat the duke can do moving forwards in a way that is acceptable to His Majesty.\u201d Those talks included discussing the Eurasia Fund, according to PA. <\/p>\n Buckingham Palace said Friday that King Charles has met with Prince Andrew together with Hampshire over the past year to discuss proposals for independent funding, but Yang was never mentioned. <\/p>\n The relationship between the prince and Yang came about shortly after the duke\u2019s disastrous 2019 BBC interview on his relationship with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which Hampshire said led to his belief that the prince\u2019s reputation was \u201cirrecoverable.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThis was a common feeling within the royal household, despite what the duke thought may happen. It was very clear internally within the royal household that we would have to look at options for the duke\u2019s future away from royal duties,\u201d Hampshire said in his witness statement, according to British news agency PA. <\/p>\n According to PA, Hampshire also said he never saw a \u201cred flag\u201d with Yang (who also went by the name Chris), and emphasized Yang \u201ccategorically does not have a close relationship with the duke.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cChris, of course, doesn\u2019t have the duke\u2019s telephone number or his email address and does not have the ability to talk directly to the duke on his own – ever. This is normal practice and Chris\u2019s relationship with the duke is the same as numerous others,\u201d he said, according to PA. <\/p>\n He also said Andrew \u201cfully complied\u201d with advice to end all contact with Yang. <\/p>\n Hampshire said in a separate statement on Friday that he left the royal household in 2022 and no longer provides advice to Andrew, according to PA. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prince Andrew\u2019s links to an alleged Chinese spy were detailed in documents released Friday by British courts, which included a statement from a former close aide to the prince about the duke\u2019s line of communication…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}