Charles angry at leak of Chinese 'waxworks' jibe

The Telegraph
14 November 2005

The publication of a private journal in which the Prince of Wales describes Chinese diplomats as "appalling old waxworks" could lead to legal action being taken against a newspaper.

Prince Charles
Prince Charles

The prince's views on the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese were published in the Mail on Sunday, only days after a state visit by the Chinese president, Hu Jintao. It is understood the prince is angry at the betrayal of confidence, and Clarence House said it was "seriously considering taking legal proceedings relating to the issue".

The newspaper reported that the prince often wrote such accounts and sent them to up to 100 friends, relatives and political contacts. His journal, entitled The Handover of Hong Kong, or The Great Chinese Takeaway, described a group of Chinese at one ceremony with the then president, Jiang Zemin, as "appalling old waxworks".

The event was characterised as an "awful Soviet-style" performance, with "goose-stepping" soldiers. He wrote: "After my speech, the president detached himself from the group of appalling old waxworks who accompanied him and took his place at the lectern.

"He then gave a kind of 'propaganda' speech which was loudly cheered by the bused-in party faithful at the suitable moment in the text." The prince was said to have described a transitional government, put in place for the handover, as "kowtowing" to the Chinese.

A Clarence House spokesman said: "It is quite clear to us that the source for this story is material that was unlawfully accessed and copied and then handed to the Mail on Sunday. "The Mail on Sunday had full knowledge of these facts, yet they still chose to use the material as the basis of their story."

The prince, who supports the Dalai Lama, was accused of boycotting the last visit by a Chinese leader by missing the official banquet. This time he was out of the country. The Mail on Sunday said: "Copies of the prince's journal were circulated to a wide range of people. As far as we are concerned, this has been a classic journalistic exercise and we came into possession of the text of the journal entirely legitimately."