LONDON: A British monarch has only ever made one state visit to China: Queen Elizabeth II four decades ago. King Charles III would consider undertaking the second, according to an aide.
“If the government said, ‘Will the king go to China?’ I think, you know we think about it very carefully,” a senior palace aide told reporters this week.
The late queen, Charles’s mother, visited China with her husband Prince Philip in October 1986.
The trip included stops in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to reports at the time.
It came two years after the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration setting out the terms for the return of Hong Kong, which improved relations between the two countries.
“This is the 40th anniversary of the last state visit,” noted the aide, speaking at the end of the king’s nine-day tour of the Caribbean.
Charles’s trip was dominated by the thorny subject of slavery reparations. He called the transatlantic slave trade a “monstrous injustice” as the UK government mulls an apology.
“I think what we’re seeing is a very clear pattern emerging of the government asking the king to head into quite politically charged situations, quite challenging situations,” said the aide.
The king, who is politically neutral, “relishes” the “tough parts” of his role and can be a “great secret weapon” for the government, the aide added.
“Whether that’s leading on the environment, whether it’s renewing and refreshing and reinvigorating relationships with nations where there have been some complex political issues at play, that is what he lives and breathes for,” they said.
Charles, who is nearly 78 and still being treated for an undisclosed cancer, was widely praised for his state visit to the United States and delicate handling of US President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Relations between London and Beijing have been strained for years, fuelled in part by tensions over the political situation in former British colony Hong Kong, criticism of Beijing’s human rights record and spying allegations.
But UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is now pursuing the same policy of cautious rapprochement started by his predecessor Keir Starmer, who visited Beijing in January.
“China is a hugely important country. It’s a very complex country. It would pose you know a lot of complexity in putting a program together,” Charles’s aide said.
As then prince of Wales, Charles oversaw Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule as Britain’s most senior representative at the 1997 handover alongside China’s then president Jiang Zemin.
Asked whether Burnham would be asking the king to visit China, his spokesman told AFP that questions about the monarch’s travel was “one for the palace.”–AFP