How do people feel when they get one of these letters? Is it: “Omigod, they’re right, we’ve been helping to further the malign agenda of the Chinese Communist Party!” Or: “Yeah, we’ve been helping to further the malign agenda of the CCP. So what. Enemies of the West are people too, and some of them are very nice in their own way.” Or…?
The latest dispatch, a collaboration of the U.S. and the UK, is addressed to the chairman of the British 48 Group Club.
The chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP, John Moolenaar; Senator Jeff Merkley; and UK lawmakers from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, of which Moolenaar and Merkley are U.S. co-chairs, “have formally written to the 48 Group Club to demand transparency regarding the organization’s extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party and its ‘United Front’ influence operations. The letter targets the organization’s deep-rooted links to Beijing’s ‘United Front’ influence operations” (April 9, 2026).
After explaining the ingredients of the CCP’s United Front activities, including espionage, surveillance, propaganda, and “the harassment, intimidation, or neutralization of CCP critics,” the letter expresses concern about “the 48 Group’s relationship with the alleged CCP agent and spy, Mr. Yang Tengbao. Mr. Yang reportedly maintained close ties to the CCP’s United Front Work Department while serving as an honorary board member of the organization.” But Yang is just the tip of the iceberg.
As recently as 2022, Mr. Yang was listed as an honorary board member of the 48 Group. While the organization reportedly rescinded Mr. Yang’s membership in 2023 due to the revelation that the UK government deemed that his “presence posed a threat to national security,” this does not help explain how he was admitted as a member in the 48 Group or the degree to which Mr. Yang may have influenced the organization’s mission. Indeed, there remain other individuals currently affiliated with the 48 Group who have either served in senior levels of the Chinese government or maintain close ties to the PRC.
The letter relates details of the “other PRC-linked individuals on the 48 Group’s website,” which “reads like a Who’s Who among CCP political and business elites,” stresses that the CCP “sees the 48 Group as a tool for its ability to shape British narratives and for elite capture,” and solicits the following:
1. Compliance, risk, and due-diligence assessments that the 48 Group conducted when entering or expanding its partnerships with individuals affiliated with the CCP’s United Front system.
2. Records of internal deliberations regarding Mr. Yang’s membership and those specifically relating to how he was admitted as a member in the 48 Group, and a detailed explanation of what an association with the organization, including an honorary membership, actually entails.
3. All agreements, memoranda, or contracts between the 48 Group and any of the following: Mr. Yang, Mr. Li Yuanchao, Ms. Fu Ying, Mr. Jiang Enzhu, Mr. Liu Mingkang, Mr. Zha Peixin, Mr. Michael Liu, Mr. Winston Fang, Mr. Ou Yan, Shicheng Yang, Mr. Wang Jifei, Mr. Liu Jinsheng, Mr. Yu Xiaosong, or any PRC-based entities and ties to the CCP’s United Front system.
The two Brits joining Moolenaar and Merkley as signatories are Members of Parliament Iain Duncan Smith and Sarah Champion.
Now what?
My guess is that this footnoted letter from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China will get zilch in the way of cooperation, hard reckoning, and salutary improvement from the 48 Group.
It would be helpful if all the results or non-results of such epistolary inquiries conducted in the cause of thwarting the Chinese Communist Party were regularly reported in one easily accessible place. Make it easy to know whether requested documents have been supplied or not supplied, requested testimony given or not given, recommended reforms penitently adopted or assiduously eschewed.
Also see:
48 Group: “After 8 Years, Opportunity is Ahead for Both Countries”
“Opportunity in international cooperation is not theoretical. It emerges when readiness meets action…. The 48 Group believes that the next phase of UK–China cooperation will be defined less by scale alone and more by integration of technology, capital, research, and trusted relationships.”
