King met Chinese financier deemed security risk by Nato ally

 

The Belt and Road strategy is the cornerstone of Xi’s foreign policy which he has used to lure countries away from the West. He unveiled the global infrastructure initiative in 2013, since which time Chinese state-owned and private companies have poured an estimated $1 trillion into energy and transport projects.

At the start, it had two prongs: the “Belt” — connecting China to Europe through central Asia — and the “Road”, referring to maritime routes linking Chinese ports with Africa, Asia and Europe. Part of the objective was to offer countries an alternative development partner to the US.

Over the past decade, Xi has expanded the project to the Middle East and South America, with 150 countries among its stated beneficiaries. He has also ploughed money into geopolitically sensitive projects such as military bases and telecommunications infrastructure. 

Critics say it has made participating countries economically enfeebled, pointing to “debt trap” diplomacy, where cash-poor states are forced to repay Beijing by granting them access to oil and minerals or leasing them strategically important ports or land, giving China a back door into countries previously aligned with the West. 

• Chinese workers killed in backlash against Beijing’s Belt and Road

After Prince Andrew’s links to the “spy” were uncovered, Sir Keir Starmer said it was “important to engage” with China before stating: “Of course, we are concerned about the challenge that [it] poses.”

Song has described Touchstone, his firm, as a “One Belt One Road Fund platform”, and says he connects “China’s central/state-owned/great private enterprises” with overseas projects. Leaked emails show that at the time of his meeting with Charles, Song had expressed interest in funnelling Chinese cash into British and Irish housing projects, with the heirs of the Guinness family among those he planned to approach. 

One former associate said Song touted his links to state-owned enterprises as he made introductions. “He always said that he represents them,” they said, referencing companies including China Railway Group, a state-owned giant. Yet they severed ties with him after years of talks about a London development that did not bear fruit. 

Another associate acknowledged concerns about his past, but said he enjoyed “a lot of backing from Hong Kong and China” and “Chinese state-owned companies”. Given his “very good relationships”, and the fact some of the entities had put money behind him before, the associate has given him the benefit of the doubt. 

The associate said his business model involved raising money against assets including mining and infrastructure projects. Examples include a gold mine in Kyrgyzstan and a petroleum hub in Ghana, according to public records. 

He appears to have adopted a similar model in the case of the Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel, which was originally conceived by Peter Vesterbacka, a Finnish software developer who created the Angry Birds gaming franchise. 

 

After Song stepped in, reports emerged that three Chinese companies would build the 100km tunnel using private finance: the China Railway International Group, the China Railway Engineering Corporation and the China Communications Construction Company. All three are wholly owned by the Chinese state. 

In 2020, Estonia blocked the plan, with Jaak Aab, its minister of public administration, citing “security reasons” among others. 

Song said he had “no idea” about the basis for the conclusion that it posed a threat to national security. 

However, he has often operated at the intersection of Chinese business and politics. In 2019, he met Rumen Radev, the president of Bulgaria and an ally of Xi’s, as a “representative of Chinese companies participating in … the One Belt, One Road” initiative. Years earlier, he appeared at the Chinese embassy in Grenada — a Caribbean nation that had recently dropped its support for Taiwan — and made a speech next to the ambassador. 

Song denies any wrongdoing. On the proposed deal at Dumfries House, he said: “Before dinner, I actually took our [terms and conditions] and the guys told me: ‘If you want to meet him, you need to make an investment, donation … I said I’m sorry, I cannot do that.” After the meeting with Charles, he says, he realised that there were no buyers for the proposed properties. “From day one, actually, we asked about project details … afterwards, the conditions [and] terms cannot meet investment criteria, so we cannot make any investment,” he said.

Song continued: “We are actually an investment company, and we do different projects … [we have] no link to any government, and we are just a private company.”

He said he did not specialise in Belt and Road projects alone, stating: “We are very much based on different project portfolios … a lot of projects in different countries.” He said he had investors in China and outside of China, and that they raised money on the financial markets.

Throughout the past decade, Song has spent much of his time in London. He lists his address on Companies House as Fucheng Road in Beijing.

 

 

Although he has incorporated entities in opaque jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, he says his group is headquartered in Great Portland Street, a short walk from the Chinese embassy in Portland Place. It previously registered itself to addresses on Hertford Street in Mayfair and later an office in Cambridge.

Like the rest of his companies, Touchstone Capital has never published detailed financial information. Song says Touchstone had the structure of a partnership, with shareholders based in and outside of China, and that it is not technically owned by him. 

The disclosures pose questions about how and why Song has incorporated businesses in the UK. A person does not need to be a British national or resident to create a UK company. 

They will also renew scrutiny of the links between the royal family and foreign governments. Charles has looked not only to China to bail out his charities, but Middle Eastern kingdoms, including Qatar, whose former prime minister once handed him millions of pounds in bags of cash, and Saudi Arabia, the home of Mahfouz bin Mahfouz, the controversial tycoon who was promised a CBE and received one after making charitable donations. 

Song said his string of dissolved or struck-off companies reflected the difficult business environment in which he had operated. He said many of his investors were based outside of China and that he was interested in business, not politics. He said the company expelled from Luxembourg’s stock exchange was owned and run by an associate who had asked him to serve as a director, that the Brazilian venture had used his company name but was not run by him, and that the court order related to a debt which had arisen during Covid. 

Fawcett declined to respond.