King met Chinese financier deemed security risk by Nato ally

The King met a Chinese financier for President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative whose work was later deemed a national security risk by a Nato member state.

Charles dined with Kenny Song after courtiers were told the Beijing-based businessman could contribute £10 million to bail out his failed property scheme.

The King welcomed Song to a private black-tie dinner at Dumfries House, his country estate in southwest Scotland where he has hosted ministers and foreign dignitaries, in late 2018.

 

Under a proposed deal, Song would have invested in nearby Knockroon, a development that was supposed to repay the £20 million loan Charles’s charity took out to purchase the 18th-century estate.

 

Knockroon remains a ghost town due to a lack of demand, which has forced Charles to fundraise privately to settle his charity’s debts.

According to sources, Song said he could help facilitate the construction of cheap modular homes by Chinese state-owned corporations. 

The deal fell through soon after Song attended the dinner. He says he had a friendly conversation with the King, but that a lack of potential buyers for the homes meant the proposal was never commercially viable. He was never prepared to give to the King’s Foundation, which owns Dumfries House and developed Knockroon, on a purely charitable basis.

 

A source with royal links had a different recollection, claiming that both parties’ lawyers had entered talks and were drafting a memorandum of understanding, only for Song to “disappear” without explanation. They also said Charles’s aides became concerned about the financier’s links to the People’s Republic. It is unclear if this came before or after the deal petered out. 

Song, 52, later used a photograph of his visit to Dumfries House in a business brochure. In the image, he appears in black-tie next to William Bortrick, a fixer who was close to the palace and had previously arranged an honour for a Saudi donor to Charles.