The man, known only as H6, was found to have been in communication with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the Chinese state.
A Chinese businessman and suspected spy for Beijing with close ties to Prince Andrew has been barred from the UK on national security grounds.
The 50-year-old, referred to as H6 in court documents, was removed from a flight from Beijing to London in February 2023, and banned from the UK the following month over his alleged “covert and deceptive activity” for an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
H6 had appealed against the ban at the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), but lost his case on Thursday. As a result of the ruling, his relationship with the Duke of York came to light, with the man described as a “close confidant” of the royal.
The ban on H6 came after documents were discovered on his personal devices, following their confiscation by UK border security officials in November 2021.
The evidence included letters from one of Prince Andrew’s advisers and also correspondence with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the Chinese state.
In a 2020 letter, the Duke of York’s aide told H6, who had just been invited to the prince’s birthday party, that he was seen favourably by Andrew and his family.
“You should never underestimate the strength of that relationship. 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 adviser said in the letter, which was published as part of the SIAC’s ruling.
“Under your guidance, we found a way to get the relevant people unnoticed in and out of the house in Windsor,” the adviser wrote in the letter.
The same aide also said in another letter that H6 could engage with potential partners and investors in China on the prince’s behalf.
Another document dated 24 August 2021 detailed the “main talking points” for a call with Andrew. The list contained advice such as the need to manage the prince’s expectations, as well as the observation that the royal was in a “desperate situation and will grab onto anything”.
The judges on the SIAC found that H6 could have used his influence over the Duke of York for political interference.
They said that the government’s actions in the case were “justified and proportionate”, noting that H6’s close relationship with Andrew left the prince “vulnerable”.
“It is obvious that the pressures on the Duke could make him vulnerable to the misuse of that sort of influence,” they wrote.
Buckingham Palace has refused to comment on the affair, noting that the prince is no longer a working royal.
Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat, a former security minister, said the affair was “extremely embarrassing” for the prince, who stepped back from royal duties in November 2019 after public outrage over his friendship with the late disgraced US financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In 2022, the royal family removed Andrew’s military links and royal patronages.
ADVERTISEMENTTugendhat, a politician for the Conservative Party, told the BBC that China is hypocritical when it tells other countries not to interfere, especially over its human rights record.
“Actually they [China] do nothing but interfere in the United Kingdom and in many, many other countries around the world,” he said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently called for stronger business cooperation between the UK and China. He spoke to his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit last month, making him the first British prime minister since 2018 to meet Xi in person.
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