Donald Trump could reject Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador because of his links to China

A dossier detailing Peter Mandelson’s close Chinese connections has been handed by US Senators to the FBI, as the furore over the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s controversial pick for US Ambassador grows.

Told about the revelation, Lord Mandelson denied ever conducting business in China despite the document listing examples of his high-level meetings and mentions of his work with Chinese state-owned enterprises that are freely available on the Chinese internet.

The British press has reported that US President Donald Trump could reject Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador because of his links to China. Peter Mandelson has promoted closer trading ties between China and the West throughout his political and business career.

President Trump and Sir Keir spoke on Sunday but there was no mention of the British Prime Minister’s controversial pick for Ambassador in Number 10’s readout.

Before Lord Mandleson can take up the post in DC, he will need to pass a US security check – this was confirmed by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office which said he would undergo the same stringent checks applied to all UK diplomatic staff serving in the US.

This could involve fresh scrutiny of Lord Mandelson’s business dealings as co-founder of his global advisory firm Global Counsel.

In a global exclusive, ahead of the check The Nightly can reveal that can reveal that a dossier prepared by Chung Ching Kwong of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China seen by US Senators has been subsequently passed on to the FBI.

Asked if he was confident of passing a US security check given his business dealings in China, Lord Mandelson told The Nightly: “I have had no business dealings in China.”

But the dossier, also sighted by The Nightly, contains multiple instances of Chinese Communist Party figures praising or thanking the Labour peer for working with state enterprises.

In one instance, Lord Mandelson is even recorded as an adviser to the Chinese-headquartered global investment bank China International Capital Corporation (CICC) – which is not declared on his House of Lords register.

This occurred in 2013 when Song Yufang who was then the chair of China Railway Materials Corporation (CRMC) met Mandelson and described him as an “advisor” of CICC and said he “hoped that Lord Mandelson would continue to pay attention to and support China Railway’s development in the future”.

The Chinese internet also contains a litany of examples of Lord Mandelson, often with a Global Counsel delegation, visiting China and holding meetings with top-level figures.

For example, in March 2014, the Chinese published photographs of a meeting that took place between Lord Mandelson and Huang Shuhe who was then Deputy Director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

A Chinese readout of the meeting posted on the Chinese web, said: “Mr Mandelson introduced the business situation of Global Counsel and the cases of cooperation with central enterprises.”

In response, Huang Shuhe said he “hoped that Global Counsel would continue to provide quality services for central enterprises to further enhance their international competitiveness.”

More recently, in 2019, Lord Mandelson met Zhou Yubo, then Secretary of the CPC Committee and Chairman of China Guoxin, an asset management firm.

“Mr Mandelson … said that China Guoxin has established a good image as an institutional investor and that Global Counsel is very willing to strengthen the all-round cooperation with China Guoxin,” a post on the Chinese web said.

Asked how he could insist he has never had business dealings in China given these specific examples, Lord Mandelson did not respond.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: “There is an established regime in place for the management of interests held by Ambassadors or High Commissioners.”

“This ensures that steps are taken to avoid or mitigate any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest,” the spokeswoman said.

Lord Mandelson co-founded Global Counsel in 2010. It was valued at £30 million (AU$59 million), according to the Financial Times, when The Messina Group, founded by former Obama strategist Jim Messina purchased a 20 per cent stake last year.

In a solicitation letter also obtained by The Nightly, Peter Mandelson wrote to prospective clients asking them to hire his firm noting that he had “travelled extensively, renewing my networks in … China … Hong Kong and in other countries.”

More recently, the firm, in which he reduced his stake not long ago, has been reported in the British media as advising TikTok, which the United States is forcing to divest from its Chinese ownership or face a ban, as well as fast fashion company Shein which has its factories in China.

Mr Starmer announced in December that the former Blair and Brown-era Cabinet minister would be posted to the United States to replace the popular civil servant Dame Karen Pierce who is well-regarded in Trump circles.

Chris LaCivita, who was co-campaign manager for Donald Trump’s presidential election bid has slammed the Mandelson pick, saying the British were replacing a “professional universally respected ambo (ambassador) with an absolute moron”.

Unlike Australia, the UK normally sends career diplomats to their key posts and one has served in Washington since 1977, meaning Sir Keir overrode convention to install Lord Mandelson.

But the decision was always bound to be controversial as Lord Mandelson has never been far from headlines. He was twice forced to resign from Tony Blair’s cabinet.

Max Hastings, who was editor of the Evening Standard at the time recounted how he had held off publishing a story that Peter Mandelson had failed to declare that he borrowed money from a cabinet colleague to buy a house and failed to declare it.

Hastings said he decided not to publish the report after receiving a call from Mr Mandelson who told him the story was “categorically untrue” and that he’d borrowed the money from this mother.

The story was true and when later confronted, Hastings said Mr Mandelson told him that: “I always intended to buy the house with family money.”

Mr Mandelson then resigned from cabinet a second time after pressuring the Home Office to give an Indian tycoon a passport. He was nevertheless rewarded with a posting to Brussels to be EU Trade Commissioner in 2004.

But here too, controversy followed. He was forced to correct the record to declare that he had first met the Russian steel oligarch Oleg Deripaska in 2004 — before sensitive trade tariffs were decided that eventuated in saving Deripaska millions — and not after in 2006 and 2007 as his office said.

This was despite the then-EU Trade Commissioner, who was responsible for metals tariffs at the time, dining with the oligarch in Moscow in 2005 and then spending a night as his guest in Siberia along with the British banker Nat Rothschild. There they enjoyed a traditional sauna, played sport and the next day toured Deripaska’s smelter. They flew on Deripaska’s private jet.

More recently court documents have renewed focus on Peter Mandelson’s association with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein who died from apparent suicide in his jail cell after being charged with sex trafficking. Mr Mandelson has said previously that he regrets having been introduced to Epstein but has never confirmed or denied staying at Epstein’s New York townhouse.

Martin Farr, a lecturer in contemporary British history at Newcastle University and head of Britain and the World, said Lord Mandelson was damaged by the ongoing revelations.

“This is the risk of high-profile political appointees: they can have skeletons in closets,” he said.

“Career diplomats tend not to and they tend not be Marmite — or Vegemite — candidates, in the way Mandelson is.”