Analysis: Epstein Files Suggest Systematic China Influence Operation Through Lord Mandelson
Newly released emails reveal convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein coaching British politician Peter Mandelson and JP Morgan executive Jes Staley to embed themselves in China's Communist Party elite.
LONDON — As British police launch a criminal investigation into Lord Peter Mandelson for allegedly leaking market-sensitive government information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during the 2008-2010 financial crisis, a comprehensive review of newly released documents from the same period reveals a potentially deeper concern: Epstein’s systematic efforts to forge ties between Beijing’s Communist Party elite and British politicians and financiers.
Mandelson’s communications with Epstein regarding China business dealings directly contradict his January 2025 claims of having no financial ties to Beijing—assertions made as questions swirled around his controversial appointment by Keir Starmer in December 2024 as UK Ambassador to the United States.
After a vote this week in Westminster forced Starmer to hand over the Mandelson vetting files to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the Labour Prime Minister faces a reckoning over materials that could reveal exactly what Starmer knew about Mandelson’s business relationship with Epstein and the pair’s dealings with elites in China and Russia. Scotland Yard has blocked release of certain evidence, citing concerns it would prejudice ongoing criminal investigations.
But material already publicly disclosed under the Epstein Transparency Act reveals the Mandelson-Epstein communications as a striking echo of an existing China business influence scandal involving Epstein and JP Morgan Chase executive Jes Staley.
Together, they suggest Epstein was encouraging—if not orchestrating—a strategy to position former British officials as bridges to China’s Communist Party elite, raising questions about whether both the current Starmer government and the prior Gordon Brown government were exposed to compromised advice on China policy.
The consequences are sharpened by the fact that Mandelson was brought back into government by Starmer years after Epstein’s apparent China influence operations took place.
When asked in January 2025 whether he was confident of passing a US security check given his business dealings in China, Mandelson told The Nightly: “I have had no business dealings in China.” Newly released emails from the Epstein files directly contradict this claim.
The April 2011 Email: Building a China Business Platform
At the time of an April 2011 email — disclosed 15 years later — Mandelson was five months into launching Global Counsel, a London-based lobbying and strategic advisory firm he co-founded in November 2010 with longtime Labour ally Benjamin Wegg-Prosser. He had left government when Labour lost the May 2010 election and was pivoting from three decades in politics to the private sector.
In an email to Jeffrey Epstein dated April 16, 2011, Mandelson wrote:
“I appreciate your advice. But I am starting in political world, moving to financial. Learning. Making contacts. Establishing new credentials and a business platform. Some Chinese want deals (should be able to offer that in due course). Some have deals already but need hand holding. Some want to put money into funds. CICC retain us cos think we have something to offer Chinese. Henry K says we also need to become go-betweens for those with commercial disputes.”
“Henry K” appears to refer to Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State widely regarded as perhaps the most influential Western leader of the past half-century in forging elite ties between Washington and Beijing.
The "CICC" reference is to China International Capital Corporation, a Beijing-based investment bank with close ties to the Chinese government and state-owned enterprises — effectively, in China's party-state system, a massive foreign investment bridge that comes under Chinese Communist Party guidance.
Mandelson had known Epstein for at least eight years by this point — financial records show Epstein made the first of three payments totaling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson in 2003, the same year Mandelson penned a note in Epstein’s 50th birthday book calling the financier “my best pal.”
Mandelson’s assertion that “CICC retain us” indicates Global Counsel had secured a consulting contract to advise Chinese entities seeking cross-border deals, positioning Mandelson’s political credentials and government experience as valuable currency for Chinese clients navigating Western markets. This relationship was explicitly denied by Mandelson when questioned fourteen years later, a factor likely to concern Washington lawmakers already wary of Beijing’s growing influence in Westminster.
But this was not Epstein’s first intervention in Mandelson’s China positioning.
In an equally revelatory email seven months prior, Mandelson was already being actively encouraged by the convicted sex offender on how to position himself in China. On September 10, 2010, while evidently attending high-level meetings and functions in China, Mandelson wrote to Epstein:
“they need us !! (with all my experience of banking and wealth management...) I have just had breakfast with Chinese ambo here. They seem to accord me almost god-like status and want me to extend my stay next week to Saturday in order to meet more people - aerospace and railways - and a lunch at foreign ministry etc.”
Epstein’s response the same day was direct and could be seen as a smoking gun:
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