Sin Hung Ng MBE: 'preserving roots' for the CCP in the UK
Ng has spent decades working with schools nationwide, involving children in propaganda and activism, and becoming one of the Chinese embassy's best friends in the process
Sin Hung Ng MBE (伍善雄, also sometimes written as Wu Shanxiong) has operated as a key public influence agent for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the UK, working mostly amongst British Chinese communities.
Ng is the head of the UK Association for the Promotion of Chinese Education (英国中文教育促进会 APCE), which was established in the 1990s to support weekend Chinese-language schools set up by British Chinese communities. APCE interacts with hundreds of children and parents every year. APCE appears to have no legal entity associated with it and to operate in an entirely unregulated and informal way.
Ng is closely connected to the United Front work of the Chinese embassy in London and the CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), which is tasked with building CCP influence amongst Chinese diaspora groups worldwide.
According to Chinese-language sources, Ng has repeatedly expressed pro-CCP sentiments and organised pro-CCP events in the UK, involving children at schools linked to APCE in these.
According to Chinese state media, Ng has explicitly described his work with children as having a political agenda, to build support for the “reunification of the ancestor-land”, i.e., China’s territorial expansion.
Ng was an honorary president of an important UFWD body in the UK, other leaders of which are connected to crime or the shadow economy.
Ng is an alumnus of the UFWD’s proprietary university. He has been repeatedly and prominently honoured by the CCP.
Taken together, these facts raise serious questions about the appropriateness of APCE’s and Ng’s work. Ng and APCE did not respond to requests for comment.
This blog is part of a series produced by UK-China Transparency (UKCT) on those involved in United Front work in the UK. More information about our research on this theme can be found on our website. Please note that some sources cited in this report have been saved as archived web pages in a form that some browsers will not open. Contact info@ukctransparency.org for assistance.
Trained and supported by the United Front Work Department
Ng is a British citizen who, according to a profile hosted on a UFWD website, was born in Guangdong and came to the UK in the late 1960s. He was awarded an MBE in 2000. He is now in his eighties. In his youth, Ng was educated at Jinan University 暨南大學 in Guangdong province. Unlike other Chinese universities, Jinan is run by the UFWD and much of its work is expressly geared towards China’s foreign relations and links to the Chinese diaspora.
Having initially set up a travel agency through which he assisted restaurateurs with obtaining work permits for Chinese staff (per a Chinese government webpage), Ng then set up APCE as a “full-time volunteer” in 1993, according to the UFWD profile. In appreciation of his efforts, Ng reportedly has been invited to attend five consecutive military parades in China, presumably in 1984, 1999, 2009, 2015, and certainly in 2025, when he was pictured in Tiananmen Square by a UFWD website (see photo below).
Ng has also been appointed to an honorary role at a prominent pro-CCP organisation that campaigns in support of China’s territorial ambitions in the UK. This is the Promotion of China Re-Unification Society in UK (全英华人华侨中国统一促进会, PCRS), which although currently dormant following the death of its founder last year has for more than a decade functioned as the British branch of the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification, which is run by the UFWD.
PCRS’s most recent list of “honorary presidents” (名誉会长 ), covering the period 2016-2022 at a minimum, consisted of six figures, of which Ng was one. The other five included some important figures, two of which have a connection to the shadow economy as well as the CCP’s United Front work:
Convicted fraudster Anthony Ho 何家金 on whom UKCT is shortly to publish research;
Chu Ting Tang, one of the main public influence agents supporting the Chinese Communist Party’s agenda in the UK on whom UKCT has previously published research;
To Ming Lam 林道明, an alleged underworld boss on whom UKCT has published extensive research;
In 2013, Ng gave an interview to a UFWD-run outlet in which he reportedly said that:
“…overseas Chinese education serves five major purposes: nurturing students, disseminating knowledge, propagating culture, fostering friendship between China and other nations, and supporting the reunification of the ancestor-land.”
Ng has close connections to the Chinese embassy and has involved UFWD staff in ACPE’s events. For example, photographs published by another UFWD website show that, at a workshop convened to discuss language teaching in 2018, the UFWD’s main “Overseas Chinese affairs” official, Lu Haitian 卢海田, sat alongside Ng and fellow APCE leader Zhenli Huang 黄珍理. Lu explained that “Chinese language education serves as a vital project for preserving cultural roots overseas” for the UFWD. (See photo below showing, from left to right, Huang, Ng and Lu.)
According to a UFWD-linked Chinese language news site, heralding the CCP’s 2022 congress, Ng said:
“All members of the UK Association for the Promotion of Chinese Education unanimously affirm that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the future holds boundless promise. We pledge to dedicate our utmost efforts to preserving our ancestor-land’s cultural roots.”
In 1999, and again in 2014, Ng was reportedly given awards by the Chinese government.
The examples given here certainly do not constitute an exhaustive survey of Ng’s words of praise for the CCP, support for its geopolitical agenda, or links to CCP officialdom.
APCE’s work: cultivating “pillars of Sino-British friendship”
According to its website, APCE’s work focuses on Chinese schools in the UK. These are weekend language and culture schools that cater almost entirely to ethnic Chinese families.
APCE’s mission is to provide textbooks and materials, organise teacher training, to host trainers from China, to organise summer camps in China for British youngsters, to organise an annual celebration for teachers, to promote the teaching of Mandarin over Cantonese and the use of simplified characters over the traditional characters used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, to organise competitions, to provide formal degree-level training to UK-based teachers in conjunction with Jinan University, and to raise funds and award grants to schools.
UKCT has found evidence of all these activities online, but has not fully established the sources of APCE’s funding. Most of APCE’s work is constructive and focused on valuable education, however, considering Ng’s profile and political activism, there are serious questions about whether the education and materials provided are politicised in favour of the CCP.
In 2021, APCE organised a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP. Ng appeared in front of a banner celebrating the CCP, introducing a programme describing modern China’s history. According to a UFWD-supported news site, this include a segment on the “enthusiasm” and “earth-shaking transformations” of Mao’s leadership, and proclaimed that the CCP has now totally eradicated all poverty in China.
A compilation of images published by APCE has been reproduced above. It shows the participation in the proceedings of young British Chinese children, including by apparently presenting their own art celebrating the CCP and singing patriotic songs about the “ancestor-land”, whilst identifiable UFWD staff and other officials based in the Chinese embassy look on. (UKCT has deliberately obscured the faces of youngsters and non-officials involved.) The original webpage describing this celebration appears to have been deleted.
A profile published by Jinan University has Ng tell the university:
“From the 1990s onwards, we organised annual 30-day ‘Chinese Language and Culture Summer Camps’, guiding children along patriotic education routes while showcasing China’s modernisation. [… …] I hope Chinese language education can extend beyond ethnic enclaves, enabling more British children to learn Chinese culture from an early age, understand China’s stories, and grow into pillars of Sino-British friendship and communication in the future.”
In 2021, APCE worked with the UFWD to organise a programme called “Generation Z China Stars Young Reporters’ Station” (Z世代华星小记者站). APCE ran a version of this programme in the UK, and it appears to have been a UFWD programme that took place elsewhere too, including in Australia, Korea, and the Philippines. It involved lessons by Chinese state media experts and employees, and an assignment for children taking part to write a news report for a UFWD-linked Europe-wide Chinese language media outlet.
In Newcastle, where Ng is based and the Lord Mayor of which conferred an award upon him in 2013, Ng and APCE organised a 2019 march, again involving children, in support of the CCP’s position on Hong Kong’s protests. Photographs and text relating to the event appeared on APCE’s website. A photograph blurred by UKCT has been reproduced below.
APCE claims to work with more than 100 schools and thousands of pupils. An image of its 2025 teachers’ celebration event is reproduced below (the image has been blurred by UKCT).
Conclusion: a safeguarding issue?
There is no suggestion that the majority of those who participate in APCE’s educational programmes, which are no doubt mostly positive, share Ng’s sentiments or support for the CCP or his views on the political purpose of education. Ng’s behaviour mirrors the normal UFWD strategy, which is subtly to merge political actors and influence into apolitical and constructive activities that support culture, education, community cohesion, and so on.
Ng’s activities raise questions about safeguarding. Unlike APCE itself, most of the schools connected to APCE appear to be legal entities (charities or companies) which have safeguarding responsibilities enshrined in policy documents mandated by British law. Those that are charities also have a responsibility not to run activities that are primarily in support of particular political parties, which may include the CCP. Furthermore, there is a serious argument that the “reunification” agenda of the CCP - fostering support for which Ng has reportedly said is one aim of his work with children - is a radical one, considering it comprises highly contentious and dangerous claims to territory controlled or claimed by India, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and other countries. Disputes about “reunification” have on at least one occasion led to violence on the streets of London.
Is it reasonable to ask whether it is appropriate for Chinese schools in the UK to channel children into contact and activities with APCE, an organisation that, although it may have taken steps to support language education, clearly has a political mission, connections to a foreign authoritarian government, and a record politicising children’s education.
Ng and APCE did not respond to a request for comment on this report.
UKCT’s director, Sam Dunning, said:
“Many people will doubtless be disturbed to see British Chinese children brought into activities intended to promote and praise the CCP, an authoritarian political organisation that has orchestrated extensive cyber attacks against the British government and British organisations and companies, including the Electoral Commission, NHS, and others. Organisations should consider whether, in light of their safeguarding responsibilities, APCE is an appropriate partner for their work with children. Teaching Chinese and preserving Chinese culture need not be exploited for the political purposes of a foreign power.”