My Blog Space News: How Tony Blair built a business empire in China

By Edward Malnick, Claire Newell, Lyndsey Telford, Robert Mendick and Pei Li in Beijing
12 June 2015

Tony Blair has been courting influential Chinese leaders - and then introducing them to the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund he works for

Tony Blair and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang in Beijing earlier this month Photo: Rex Features
Tony Blair has privately begun acting as broker between Abu Dhabi and China, a Telegraph investigation reveals.
A series of documents show how the former prime minister has been courting some of the most influential Chinese political and business leaders – and then introducing them to the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund he works for.
He has also facilitated talks between the chief executive of Dow Chemical and a series of Chinese government and business figures. The role assumed by Mr Blair shows his prominence in one of the most important areas of global economic cooperation this century – between the extremely wealthy and strategically important Middle Eastern emirate and the emerging superpower of China.
The disclosures come after The Telegraph on Thursday revealed the scale of Mr Blair’s international business and advisory activities for the first time, providing details from documents that suggest the taxpayer is contributing up to £16,000 a week to support him.
He has visited China more than 20 times since stepping down as prime minister, compared with just five trips as leader. A spokesman for Mr Blair said he “received no payment” for the introductions involving his Abu Dhabi client

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'He has a very good image in China'
It was the first glimpse of the lucrative life that Tony Blair was to enjoy as a former prime minister.
In November 2007 Mr Blair gave a speech in China’s industrial city of Dongguan, at an event arranged by a modest real estate company which paid about £200,000 for his appearance.
"The effect was extraordinary, it was way beyond my expectations," said Qin Gang, the public relations consultant who arranged Mr Blair’s speech for the firm.
"Thanks to Blair’s charisma and charm, as well as his endorsement to the city and the real estate project, people had a brand new view about the real estate, and the company reached a very good branding goal.
"Customers would think this company has international influence, and having Blair visit made them feel a sense of nobleness in the villas they sell.
"He has a very good image in China," Mr Qin added.

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According to China’s state news agency Mr Blair’s trip in November 2007 was only his sixth to the country. But he has now visited the country more than 20 times since leaving Downing Street.
And documents seen by The Daily Telegraph show how Mr Blair’s connections extend to the highest levels of the Communist Party and state-run corporations.

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His recent enthusiasm has raised eyebrows at the British embassy. One British official in Beijing said Mr Blair showed "virtually no interest" in China for the majority of his premiership.
"But I suppose it is a good thing if he is so keen now," the official added.
Mr Blair’s favoured accommodation has become the Grand Hyatt, a five-star hotel which acts as a hub for visiting diplomats and world leaders.
It is opposite the ministry of commerce and, coincidentally, next door to the Beijing office of Dow Chemical, whose worldwide chief executive Mr Blair has introduced to a series of influential Chinese figures.
Staff say Mr Blair and his entourage have become a familiar sight. He stays in the £4,000-per-night presidential suite on the hotel’s 17th and 18th floors, complete with private office and sauna.
While his trips include a wide array of engagements – apparently in his various capacities as Quartet envoy, businessman and climate change expert – the majority of visits are formally at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, a body based close to the Communist Party headquarters and run by former party officials and diplomats.
During one five-day trip in 2010, Mr Blair met figures including Li Keqiang, now China’s premier, as well as Fu Ying, the vice foreign minister, and Lou Jiwei, the then chairman of the China Investment Corporation, now finance minister.
During another visit in December 2013 his schedule over six days included appearances at three different conferences and a one-on-one meeting with Ma Kai, the vice premier.

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Mr Blair’s staff have also found time for him to meet Miles Kwok, a businessman who once bought 5,000 copies of an autobiography written by Mr Blair’s wife Cherie. And although Mr Blair has denied he has a commercial relationship with CIC, China’s sovereign wealth fund, Mr Lou and Gao Xiqing, its former president, are among his closest Chinese contacts.
An itinerary seen by The Daily Telegraph for a three-day visit by Mr Blair in February 2012 shows that a meeting with Mr Gao was his second appointment after stepping off the plane.
It was at a busy time for Mr Blair in China. A day later, according to an official website, representatives of his firm Tony Blair Associates signed a "strategic cooperation deal" with the municipal government of Kashgar, the westernmost city in China, to assist with attracting international investment and improving "cross-border" cooperation. A spokesman for Mr Blair denies any "deal" was struck or that he has received any payment from the city, which stands on the Silk Road – the ancient trading route reaching from the east of China to the Mediterranean.
However, the Communist Party was eager to transform the city into an economic hub once again, and Mr Blair’s apparent involvement was seen as a way to attract more international investment.
Four months later he opened an exhibition in Beijing displaying photographs of Kashgar in spring.
Mr Blair represents clients interested in the region's rich natural resources Picture: Qilai Shen
Later that year he travelled to Xinjiang, where he attended a business conference in Urumqi, the province’s capital, and held talks with Wen Jiabao, China’s then premier. Xinjiang might, on the face of it, have seemed an unusual focus for Mr Blair’s commercial energies.
The far flung province was experiencing repeated outbreaks of unrest that have continued since then, amid growing ethnic tension. It is home to the Uighurs, a largely Muslim group, and an increasing number of Han – China's dominant ethnic group – who have migrated from elsewhere in the country.
Coincidentally, though, Xinjiang sits in a familiar part of the world for Mr Blair. Kazakhstan and Mongolia, both the governments of which the former prime minister advises, border the province, and he visits both regularly. Mr Blair also represents wealthy clients who would doubtless be interested in an area he described as "rich in natural resources" such as coal, oil and gas.
So perhaps it should not have come as a great surprise when, at a meeting with Mr Blair in March 2013, Zhang Chunxian, the Communist Party’s secretary for Xinjiang, announced that Mr Blair’s was helping to draw investment to the province at large. In this case too Mr Blair’s spokesman denies a deal was struck, insisting he has not been paid. But this time Blair brought with him representatives of Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund whose payroll he had been on for about four years.
The businessmen indicated they were interested in investing in projects in Xinjiang. The delegation paid a visit to a development area of Urumqi. Later that year Mr Blair appeared to be settling in to his new-found role as a quiet broker between foreign companies and China.

'He has the halo of being former prime minister'
Chinese actress Li Bingbing and Tony Blair pictured at the book launch for the Chinese Edition of his memoir in 2011 Picture: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
He accompanied Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow Chemical, on a trip to Beijing in December 2013, with the pair attending a series of meetings together, including with the president of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, the chief executive of Sinopec, a state-owned energy and chemicals company, and Wan Gang, the minister for science and technology. According to a report of the meeting with Dr Wan, Mr Liveris discussed Dow research "on recycling, agriculture and new energy".
By September 2014 Mr Blair’s firm was telling potential clients in the Gulf that he could "help consolidate" their relations with China "through a wide range of contacts there." According to Xu Hongcai, economic research director at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, Mr Blair’s usefulness to a firm such as Dow – which already had a longstanding office in Beijing – is his "official rank" as a former British prime minister.
"In Chinese people’s traditional philosophy, they put a lot of emphasis on official rank standard," he said.
"They respect those who hold power. He has the halo of being former prime minister." This quality also appears to have won Mr Blair a close relationship with China’s International Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector, with which he first held talks in 2012.
Tony Blair introduces figures from Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala to China's International Chamber of Commerce for the Private Sector
The following year he introduced senior figures from Mubadala to members of the chamber, including Wang Yanguo, its vice chairman, in Beijing, although Prof Wang said that he was unaware at the time that Mr Blair was paid by the firm.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "He did make the introduction of Mubadala to the province of Xinjiang and to the Chamber. He was delighted to do so. He received no payment from the introduction." In March 2014 Mr Blair met Prof Wang again, this time to introduce him to Stephen Ross, the chief executive of Related Companies, a US property firm that was seeking Chinese investment for a development in New York.
Then, later last year, he sent two of his most senior advisers, Kevin Kokko, then TBA’s director for advisory, and Ari Untracht, a former chief executive of a gold mining company, to meet Prof Wang and other business leaders in Beijing.
Prof Wang recalls that Mr Blair, despite his status as former prime minister, did not appear to be the "leading actor" at their 2013 meeting. "I felt in that meeting the leading actor was not Mr Blair, but [Mubadala]. I remember that quite clearly, even though we sat close to each other, our team was facing directly to the Abu Dhabi team. Blair was sitting on the side." Despite – or perhaps as a result of – the discretion with which Mr Blair carries out his brokering role the consensus among his clients is clearly that he earns his money.
Not every former prime minister could have had the impact achieved by Mr Blair, said Qin Gang, who arranged his first blockbuster speech in China.
"If Gordon Brown came ... he probably would not have had even one tenth of the impact of Blair."