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| Queen Elizabeth II. Getty |
Queen Elizabeth II was caught on camera hitting the Chinese delegates
for their “very rude” behavior during the state visit of President Li Xinping
last year.
The queen was speaking at the garden party in Buckingham
Palace on Tuesday the very same day that Prime Minister David Cameron also hit Nigeria
and Afghanistan for corruption. The prime minister’s gaff was also caught live on
camera.
A BBC footage
saw senior police officer Lucy D'Orsi got introduced by a palace official to
Her Majesty as the officer in charge of security during Xi's visit in October.
"Oh, bad luck," the queen remarked.
D'Orsi then told the Queen of her experience with the Chinese
officials as "quite a testing time." She also told the Queen that one
point, the Chinese walked out of a meeting and told her "the trip was
off".
"They were very rude to the ambassador," the Queen
said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, meanwhile,
hailed Xi's visit to Britain as "extremely successful."
Lu also clarified that he never heard anything about the
Chinese president’s visit being called off at any point. In fact, the visit
opened a possibly new "golden age" in relations between the two
countries.
Buckingham Palace failed to comment on the issue.
"We do not comment on the queen's private
conversations. However, the Chinese state visit was extremely successful and
all parties worked closely to ensure it proceeded smoothly," a palace
spokesperson said.
The queen's remarks may prove unhelpful despite the British
government's efforts to bolster its economic ties with China.
As a constitutional monarch, the 90-year-old queen is
expected to be neutral and should never make any sensitive comments in public. It
is even rare that her private conversations are made public.
In China, meanwhile, the items about the queen's remarks
were banned from news bulletins.
The British-Chinese relations have been complicated for the
past 200 years. In 1860, at the height of Opium War, China resented Britain and
France after their troops plundered and burned the Summer Palace in Beijing.
In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron, together with a delegation
of ministers on a visit to Beijing offended the Chinese by wearing poppies. In
Britain, poppies symbolize remembrance of the fallen British soldiers during
the war. In China, however, poppies remind them of the opium trade and the
conflict that severely humiliated Chinese sovereignty.
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