An alleged Chinese spy who was banned from the UK and linked to the Duke of York can now be named as Yang Tengbo, a High Court judge has ruled.
The 50-year-old, previously known as H6, is said to have become a “close” confidant of the Duke of York and has also been pictured with senior politicians including Lord David Cameron and Baroness Theresa May.
At an urgent High Court hearing on Monday, lawyers for Mr Yang – who is also known as Chris Yang – said that the businessman was not seeking to maintain his anonymity.
He continued: “In addition, there has been some publication of the identity of my client on social media and threats emanating from various quarters to name my client in public in this jurisdiction through using Parliamentary Privilege.
“Having reflected on these matters, my client wishes to make a public statement and is applying for last Wednesday’s order to be discharged.”
Lifting his anonymity, Judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said: “It seems to me that these proceedings now serve no further purpose.”
In a statement on his behalf after his anonymity was lifted, Mr Yang said he had done “nothing wrong or unlawful and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded”, also calling allegations that he was a spy “entirely untrue”.
He continued: “I have been excluded from seeing most of the evidence that was used against me under a process which is widely acknowledged by SIAC practitioners as inherently unfair: decisions are made based on secret evidence and closed proceedings, which has been described as ‘taking blind shots at a hidden target’.”
Mr Yang challenged his ban on entering the UK at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in July, but lost his appeal last week.
Mr Justice Bourne, Judge Stephen Smith and Sir Stewart Eldon ruled that then-home secretary Suella Braverman was “entitled to conclude that the applicant represented a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom” and make the decision to exclude.
In his statement on Monday, Mr Yang said: “Even the three judges in this case concluded that there was ‘not an abundance of evidence’ against me, their decision was ‘finely balanced’, and there could be an ‘innocent explanation’ for my activities. This has not been reported in the media.”
In the 53-page judgment, the judges said there was “not an abundance of evidence of the UFWD links” and whether there were sufficient links was “finely balanced”.
But the judges continued: “However, that falls well short of a finding that there was no rational basis for the conclusion of significant links.”
The High Court in London heard that Mr Yang intends to bring a Court of Appeal challenge against the banning order.
Chinese infiltration of public orgs is of grave concern
With attempts to steal IP from business & universities in science & technology, including such as AI, semiconductors, quantum computing & graphene, amongst others.
Universities & businesses should be vigilant & cautious pic.twitter.com/niektlHuLr
— Chris Philp MP (@CPhilpOfficial) December 16, 2024
The Chinese national had been due to be named after an anonymity order made in May 2023 was lifted by judges at the specialist tribunal.
However, the day before the judgment was due to be published, he made a successful bid at the High Court for a temporary block on being named, which has now been lifted.
His anonymity came amid calls from MPs for Mr Yang to be named.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said his party was prepared to name the alleged spy in the chamber while Labour MP Graham Stringer also told the Mail on Sunday it was “ludicrous for this person to remain anonymous in the country he was allegedly spying on”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp previously told LBC he was “extremely worried” about the case and that the court order protecting the man’s identity should be lifted so that “justice can be seen to be done”.
