China’s economic rise beckoned Jeffrey Epstein in the 2010s. Associates of the financier and sex offender, who made much of his money from advising billionaires, sought opportunities to connect him with a network of powerful men in China.
Though no concrete deals ever materialized, the Epstein files demonstrate how power, connections, and opportunities flowed among the elite as China’s star continued to rise. In this episode, our reporters discuss how they sorted through thousands of files to build the network of Epstein associates with stakes in the China game.
The Wire China will have no new issue this week as we take off for the Chinese New Year. Read the Epstein and China story on our website, thewirechina.com.
Transcript
Tom: Happy Chinese New Year and welcome to The Wire China Podcast. I’m Tom Mitchell, Features Editor, speaking to you from Singapore and joined by our staff writers, Elliot Chen in Toronto and Noah Berman in New York. We span the globe here. Elliot, Noah, happy Chinese New Year.
Eliot: Happy Chinese New Year.
Tom: This week’s podcast is going to be a little bit different from our previous ones. For one thing, we don’t have an issue to preview.
We are not publishing this week because of the Chinese New Year. We will, however, have a brief clip from a Q&A conversation that we will be posting this week with Frank Decoder, the China historian and prolific book author. First, I am speaking with Elliot and Noah about their most recent cover story with their fellow staff writer, Rachel Cheung in Hong Kong on Jeffrey Epstein and China. Rachel cannot join us tonight because she has family Chinese New Year dinner obligations.
One of the things I like about our cover article on Jeffrey Epstein is that it is a classic example of how journalism often works, that is by last minute accident. I had been planning to run a different cover for last week’s issue.
And while I was aware that you were working on something related to the files, we thought that was going to be running at a different slot. But it came together very well and was very interesting. So we swapped it at the last moment.
Elliot, first off, can you explain to us how you, Noah and Rachel, approach this story? Because the Epstein files are essentially the world’s biggest document haystack. So how do you even begin to search for needles in it?
Eliot: We started off sort of just casually searching the files for mentions of China just out of curiosity. And we noticed during that search process that there are actually a bunch of pretty interesting documents and names in there that piqued our interest.
We were curious, for example, why was there a pitch deck for Boyu Capital, the private equity firm, sort of best known for being co-founded by the grandson of former top leader Jiang Zemin? Or why is Desmond Shum, the well-known author of the book Red Roulette, mentioned in the files? And we’d also seen individual social media posts on Twitter and on Reddit that were making reference to some of these documents. So we knew that other people were looking at this too. So then we asked ourselves, well, if these files are in there, can we sort of piece together a timeline of what’s going on here and what’s the extent to which China is being discussed in Epstein’s emails? And in the end, between the three of us reporters, we probably reviewed between 4,000 to 5,000 documents within the space of a week.
Many of them were duplicates. And we also had a lot of help using a program called Notebook LM, which is a Google-made AI research and note taking tool to help piece together the timeline. So at The Wire, we never use AI for writing, and we cross-check all of the output from Notebook because AI still makes a lot of mistakes.
But in this case, the tool is really useful because what it could do is read a large number of these PDF files and then sort them into order. And so we ended up with a spreadsheet of roughly 2,000 rows with the emails sorted chronologically, from which point we can gradually get a sense of what was going on, but also what are the limits of the interactions and conversations being had between these people and Epstein and the extent to which business deals were actually being discussed.
Tom: I want to spend the rest of this podcast focusing on three of the people who Epstein corresponded really the most with about China.
These are David Stern, Peter Mandelson, and Desmond Shum. Also want to touch on some of the J.P. Morgan executives in Europe who were in communication about possible China deals with Epstein and his main associate, David Stern. With regards to David Stern, Noah, tell us a little bit about who he is.
Noah: So David Stern is a young guy who met Epstein, we think, in 2008. That’s when their first email communications that we could find were when he pitches Epstein on investing in a private equity fund that he’s raising to invest in China. But we actually know a little bit more about his background because at one point Epstein asks him via email for his resume and he sends it.
So Stern studied Chinese law at the SOAS University of London and then briefly worked, we think, while he was a student for Deutsche Bank and for Siemens separately in China, and then founded this UK registered advisory firm called Asia Gateway Limited. A couple of years later, he founded another firm called Asia Gateway China, which is a health care IT business that he later sells to a British company. And over the course of their years of correspondence from 2008 until 2019, when Epstein died in his jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, Stern pitches Epstein on dozens of business deals, including several involving China and many in which he references potential partnerships with so-called princelings, the sons of the political elite top officials in the Chinese Communist Party.
Tom: Now, Stern also has connections to Prince Andrew, and we’re recording this shortly after the news that Prince Andrew has been arrested in the UK because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein. How did that happen? How is it that David Stern knows both Epstein and Prince Andrew?
Noah: So we have some insight into this, again, because of correspondences between Stern and Epstein and Sarah Ferguson, who is Prince Andrew’s ex-wife. And in February 2010, an Epstein contact, whose name appears only as Sarah in the documents, emails Epstein suggesting that David Stern help someone named A set up a wealth fund in China.
She says that Stern has been helping her a good amount and that he has a great Rolodex for China. And then immediately afterwards, Stern follows up with an email to A, writing, Your Royal Highness, the Duchess has asked me to get in contact with you. It’d be a pleasure to discuss.
And then from then on, Stern refers a number of times to his firm, Asia Gateway, as one that manages private P.A. deals, P.A. probably being short for Prince Andrew, and suggests numerous other ventures that include involvement from Prince Andrew or P.A., as they call him. Right. So David Stern is talking to Epstein about possible deals in China, none of which ever materialize that we’re aware of.
Tom: He also has this connection to Prince Andrew and seems to be using Prince Andrew’s name to try and drum up other China-related business, none of which ever materialize that we know of. Is that correct?
Noah: We did not find evidence that any of the deals that they discussed came to fruition.
Tom: However, David Stern is not all hat and no cattle because he did do at least one deal that we’re aware of with a princeling. And this was Li Botan. Can you tell us a little bit about who that princeling was and what was the investment that the two of them did together?
Noah: Li is the son-in-law of Jia Qinglin, who was once number four on China’s Politburo. And Stern and Li invested together at least once in 2017 in an electric vehicle company called Evelozcity, which was later renamed Canoo.
We know from the emails and from a person who we spoke with that Li put at least $100 million into the venture. Things were looking good for the company, which was later renamed Canoo. In 2022, it won a contract to even supply vehicles to NASA, but it went bankrupt in 2025.
Tom: Okay. So there’s a rare deal involving Stern, not Prince Andrew or Epstein in this case, but not a good deal, one that didn’t work out very well. Elliot, let’s talk a little bit about Desmond Shum, who was introduced to Epstein by Peter Mandelson.
We’ll come back to Noah and Peter Mandelson in just a second, but let’s talk about Desmond Shum. I’m a big fan of the book he wrote, Red Roulette, about his business dealings with the family of Wen Jiabao. I think it’s one of the most important books written about China this century, if not since the period of reform and opening.
What was the gist of their correspondence, Epstein and Desmond Shum?
Eliot: Shum, of course, like you mentioned, is best known today as the author of Red Roulette. At the time in which a lot of the correspondences that we reviewed happened, though, he was a businessman and a real estate developer who was based in Beijing and married to Duan Weihong, who was an entrepreneur who, according to a New York Times investigation in 2012, actually helped the family of then-premier Wen Jiabao conceal billions of dollars worth of shares in Ping An Insurance. So when Epstein first meets Shum, none of this is known yet, however.
So this is in early 2010. In early 2010, Peter Mandelson, then still a UK cabinet minister, reached out to Epstein, offering to introduce him to his quote-unquote friend, Desmond Shum. Now, before I go on, I should add that Shum told us in a statement that he had no business transaction or money transaction of any kind with Mr. Jeffrey Epstein.
And he said after our article was released on X over the weekend that his conversations with Epstein were just talking shop. But over the years, the emails that we reviewed do show substantial evidence that Shum, in fact, did discuss deals with Epstein. In 2011, for example, the two of them talk about creating an offshore banking business in China, and Shum tells Epstein that he had discussed the idea with top decision makers in China, including the chairman of state-owned investment firm CITIC, the vice mayor of Shanghai, and the top decision maker at the State Administration for Foreign Exchange.
Two years later, Shum sends Epstein a fundraising deck for his company Great Ocean Group, in which he’s looking to raise money for a plan to develop infrastructure near airports in China. And Shum and Epstein end up staying in contact for seven years, scheduling catch-ups as late as 2017. There’s no evidence from the emails that they closed any deals together.
And indeed, in some cases, Epstein actually seems skeptical of Shum’s ideas.
Tom: He’s quite critical, isn’t he, of Shum’s ideas?
Eliot: Yeah, yeah. In one case, after Shum emails a plan for a private bank to Peter Mandelson, Mandelson forwards that email to Epstein, and Epstein responds with the word childish, to sort of dismiss Shum’s plans.
Noah: I’ll just add one point on what may have impressed Desmond Shum about Epstein, and what about Epstein may have impressed Desmond Shum, which is that in one email, Epstein claims access to more than $15 billion in capital. And Shum responds, you always talk in numbers that put me in awe. We don’t know that Epstein truly did have access to that $15 billion, but he at least said so to Desmond Shum, and Desmond Shum responded in a way that conveyed that he was impressed.
Tom: I thought the correspondence between Epstein and Shum was really interesting because I thought it said so much about Epstein. I never really followed this sad story in much detail until it’s become such a big scandal of late. One of the few things that stuck in my head about Epstein is criticism of him as basically a con man who convinced a couple very rich associates, friends, that he would manage their money.
He made money managing their money, but he was nothing in the way of a real businessman or entrepreneur. He was just good at networking and convincing people to let him manage their money. And if you think about what a guy like Epstein is facing when he tries to go into a place like China, he knows nothing.
He is woefully unprepared. And the type of guy he needs to work with is someone like Shum, who has a real track record and experience. And his book is fascinating when it comes out years later.
So Desmond was a real operator, and yet Epstein doesn’t seem capable of recognizing that. Now, it was Mandelson who brought Desmond Shum and Epstein together. Tell us a little bit, Noah, about Mandelson and his relationship to China and Epstein.
Noah: On Mandelson, we know that, as Elliot said, Mandelson introduced Desmond Shum to Epstein while he was still a UK cabinet minister. He was a business secretary in the administration of Gordon Brown, then the Labour prime minister. And over the years, after leaving government, he starts a lobbying firm called Global Council and begins to drum up ideas for how to win business in China, including with state-backed investment firms.
And he talks about those ideas with Epstein and asks for advice about them. And when Epstein is talking with Shum and Mandelson, David Stern doesn’t appear to be involved in these discussions. Am I correct about that? It mostly appears that Epstein corresponded with Shum and Mandelson independent of David Stern, though there were some emails that suggested that they were aware of each other.
For example, Epstein emails Mandelson early on in either 2009 or 2010 saying, I have someone in China who I want to introduce you to, and it’s David Stern. And at another point when he is meeting Desmond Shum for the first time, David Stern sends Epstein background information that Stern says he’s collected about Desmond Shum. So it’s clear that Epstein is discussing his arrangements with Mandelson and Shum, with Stern on the side.
It’s not clear how big a part of those discussions Stern ever became alongside Epstein. And again, with both Mandelson and Shum and their discussions with Epstein, no deals that were China deals that we’re aware of ever materialized.
Tom: I just want to wrap this up by talking about another area in which Stern and Epstein were very much in contact.
And this was with certain J.P. Morgan executives in Europe, and they were talking about possible China related deals. Elliot, can you walk us briefly through what was going on there?
Eliot: With the caveat that I think this is certainly an area in which we only have a partial glimpse of what was going on through the emails, because a lot of the conversations happened over the phone. And we know that because there are emails in which Epstein is saying, call me. Stern is asking him, when can I call you?
Essentially, what we can see from the emails about what was going on here was that Epstein and Stern were talking about setting up a sort of arrangement under which Stern could work in China with J.P. Morgan. We know for some background that J.P. Morgan, until at least or up till 2013, had close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, thanks in large part to Epstein’s friendship with Jess Staley, who was the head of the private bank at the time. So we know that there is this connection between Epstein and J.P. Morgan.
And we know that Stern and Epstein are talking about using that J.P. Morgan relationship in some way to advance their work in China. At one point in time, Staley introduces Stern to top executives at J.P. Morgan. And one of those executives then for several months corresponds with Stern about using Stern’s relationships in China to try and secure some kind of state investment from Chinese investors in Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company.
So at this time, the J.P. Morgan banker, who’s based in Europe, is working with Deutsche Bahn on a partial privatization deal in which Deutsche Bahn was looking for external investors. And it seems that he was approaching Stern to try and see if Stern could get investors who Stern later mentions include CIC, China Investment Corp., the Sovereign Wealth Fund, as well as China Life, the Chinese state-owned life insurance giant, to invest. Now, nothing ends up happening with this deal.
In the end, Deutsche Bahn reverses course or the German government, which owns Deutsche Bahn, reverses course and opts against privatizing the company. But it’s an interesting look at the extent to which Epstein’s associates work with J.P. Morgan and also a look at how J.P. Morgan thought that they could use this person who claimed to be highly connected in China in order to advance their own business interests.
Tom: Thanks. Well, this is all really fascinating. And if any of our listeners haven’t seen that story, please do check it out on our website. Thank you for listening to today’s podcast.
We’re going to leave you with a clip of our interview with Frank Dikötter, the China historian and prolific author on some of the greatest tragedies of Maoist China. So with that, this is Tom Mitchell. Thank you very much and have a good holiday.
Frank: I picked up a book by a journalist called John Powell, my 25 years in China. So he spent a quarter of a century in China. I thought, let me read this.
This is an interesting primary source. And let’s see if it triggers my interest, if I can develop a passion for this period in which I had spent the first 15, 20 years of my career, by the way.
So in there is a chapter in which John Powell, with other journalists, stands on a boat in Manchuria and watches a Sino-Soviet war in the summer of 1929, in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers fight each other with aircraft, boats, towns destroyed, massacres of civilians, a full-fledged war.
And I thought, well, that’s interesting because I hadn’t really heard of the Sino-Soviet war. So I googled it. This is 2021.
And indeed in 2017, a man called Michael Walker had published a book called The 1929 Sino-Soviet War. So the subtitle is very interesting. The subtitle is The War Nobody Knew.
And he says in the introduction that very few China scholars have mentioned this war at all, which I thought was surprising. So that triggered my interest.
