Prince Andrew may have been a victim of Chairman Mao’s ‘magic weapon’ | Isabel Hilton

The United Front Work Department aims to befriend, bribe and seduce ‘useful idiots’. Was Andrew caught up in its net?

The late Chairman Mao, China’s former supreme leader, once called the United Front Work Department (UFWD) one of the three “magic weapons” of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). That the other two were the People’s Liberation Army and the party’s propaganda arm signals how central the UFWD has been to the CCP’s efforts for nearly a century. The operation involving Andrew must count as one of its more unusual achievements.

The UFWD’s job began as neutralising potentially hostile actors at home. As China has expanded into the world, it has increasingly taken on the international challenge of befriending, bribing or otherwise seducing figures of influence who can be won over to China’s cause. Such elite figures can become both useful sources of information and agents of influence who can be invited to smooth away any hostility or suspicions that might otherwise get in the way of the CCP’s ambition.