CHINESE FIXER TARGETS 5 PRIME MINISTERS
EXCLUSIVE: New evidence of Beijing’s infiltration of British Establishment
A LEADING figure in a Chinese group allegedly created to groom foreign elites has been pictured with five British prime ministers.
Photographs uncovered by the Daily Mail show how Zhirong Hu has moved among the British Establishment.
He has met Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
Mr Hu is a director of the Chinese
People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which is reportedly controlled by the country’s Communist Party.
Academics say its mission is to groom ‘ business, political and media leaders in countries around the world’. The claims are backed
by a new book, hidden hand, whose serialisation continues in the Mail today. It alleges that China is recruiting ‘useful idiots’ to push the country’s agenda in the West.
Mr hu, who sits in China’s upper parliamentary house, has also been pictured giving a thumbs-up while posing shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump in 2018.
eight years earlier he was seen shaking hands in Shanghai with former US president George W Bush.
The revelations about how Beijing has infiltrated the British elite come as the National Security Council is poised to ban China’s huawei from involvement in the UK’s 5G network tomorrow.
Mr hu is variously described as a ‘director’ and ‘national director’ of the CPAFFC, which is linked to the Communist Party’s ‘United Front’. It was described in a dossier compiled with the help of a former MI6 spy as being ‘set up to pursue a United Front strategy ... in order to promote a Party agenda abroad’.
The 86-page report, entitled China’s elite Capture and leaked to this newspaper last week, made a string of incendiary claims that Beijing was trying to manipulate key figures in the UK.
hidden hand, written by Australian academic Clive hamilton, a global authority on China, said of the CPAFFC: ‘Just as in the United Kingdom no community organisation can use the word “royal” in its title without official permission, in China, no community group would include the words “people” or “friendship” in its title
‘Cynical and opportunistic’
without Party approval. Friendship has a very distinct meaning, a cynical and opportunistic one. It does not refer to an intimate personal bond, but to a strategic relationship on behalf of the party.’
Such is Mr hu’s standing in China that shortly after a parade in Tiananmen Square last October to celebrate 70 years of Communist Party rule, he posed for a photograph alongside Chairman Mao’s grandson Mao Xinyu. In 2013, he was pictured with President Xi Jinping.
Political sources in China suggest that Mr hu’s access to establishment figures in the West is ‘unprecedented’.
Contacted for comment last night, Mr Johnson, Mrs May and Mr Blair said they did not know Mr hu and were merely posing for photographs at large events.
A source close to Mr Brown indi
cated had Cameron no the knowledge declined former prime to of comment. Mr minister hu. Mr Mr hu, alias who ‘Jacky’, also is uses behind the the anglicised Kai Xin Rong Group, which invested 500million euros in broadband in Greece shortly after the country’s prime minister visited Beijing.
he claims to donate a third of his personal wealth to charitable causes. he has also attended functions of the mysterious 48 Group Club in Britain at least twice, accompanied by Lady Xuelin Bates, wife of Conservative peer Lord Bates. giving Lady a Bates thumbs-up was photographed to camera alongside Mr hu and Mr Johnson at a convention last year. The 48 Group Club is in the spotlight
Saturday’s Daily Mail after hidden hand claimed the political networking club was being used to further Beijing’s agenda by making connections with senior politicians.
The revelations came as Labour peer Lord Mandelson, also linked to the 48 Group Club, yesterday appeared to toe the Beijing line and accused the UK government of being at ‘sixes and sevens’ on China.
he said Britain needed to decide whether it was going to ‘jump on the anti-China bandwagon because that’s the current sort of fashion to do’ or to reconsider trade talks.
WHAT could sound more congenial than the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries?
Or indeed its stated aim – to promote fellowship and understanding between China and the rest of the world.
As we reveal today, its smiling director Zhirong Hu has glad-handed and posed for pictures with our last five prime ministers.
And prominent members of the British establishment have been persuaded to extol the organisation’s virtues.
Be under no illusion, however. This seemingly worthy body is said to be one of many front organisations for China’s repressive Communist regime.
Its real mission, according to academics, is to ‘groom’ global political, business and media leaders to promote the interests of the party’s expansionist foreign policy.
In the second extract from an explosive new book – Hidden Hand – we are shown how the offspring of powerful Chinese families are being placed in jobs with highflying Western financial businesses, spreading the regime’s tentacles ever wider into global markets.
So what, some might say. Why shouldn’t China – or any country – seek help from Western elites to expand its influence?
The problem is that China is not just any country. It is the world’s ultimate surveillance state, obsessively watching its own citizens as its army of cyber-hackers aggressively spies on the rest of the world. In Hong Kong and with the brutal suppression of Uighur Muslims, Beijing has shown contempt for freedom and democracy. We should never shrink from speaking out against such attempts to crush legitimate dissent.
Yes, we should continue to trade with China, but simultaneously use every diplomatic device to pressure it to end blatant human rights abuses.
Also, when it comes to allowing the Chinese access to our strategic industries, we must simply say no. That is why the deal with telecoms giant Huawei to build part of our 5G network has to be rescinded.
And as for those pillars of the British establishment acting as cheerleaders for China, they should start seeing themselves as others see them. As ‘useful idiots’ for a ruthless totalitarian regime.