China – Three’s a crowd in a carriage

So now we know. The Chinese did try to get one of their security people into the Queen’s carriage during the President Xi state visit last October.

If you listen back to the garden party tape you can actually hear the Commander D’Orsi say to  The Queen: “They also wanted to come in your carriage with an interpreter.” The Queen replies: “Yes” after the word carriage.

Intriguingly the Police Chief continues: “I don’t know whether you know, but (we?) had to put a whole/hole …”

It’s not clear from the exchange whether this is actually the incident that provoked the walk-out from planning talks with the UK ambassador. It could be an additional grievance. But The Queen sounds like someone who is not hearing the story for the first time.

The Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman reported that the Chinese wanted an extra person in the carriage that transported their President with the Queen to Parliament last October and that this was slapped down by the UK officials who rumbled that Beijing officials were trying to get a security person into the carriage posing as an interpreter.