It was a trip meant to mark a "golden age" in relations between China and the U.K.
Unfortunately, British monarch Queen Elizabeth II wasn't too pleased with the conduct of some Chinese officials accompanying President Xi Jinping on his maiden state visit to the U.K. last year.
The queen was caught on film saying Chinese officials were "very rude" to the British ambassador during the president's visit.
In footage filmed at a Buckingham Palace garden party on Tuesday, the royal was heard making the remarks in a discussion with Lucy D'Orsi, the police commander responsible for security during Xi's visit.
After being informed of D'Orsi's responsibilities during Xi's visit, the queen said "Oh, bad luck".
Later, she told D'Orsi "They were very rude to the ambassador", referring to Barbara Woodward, Britain's ambassador to China.
D'Orsi told the queen that Xi's visit was "quite a testing time for me" and said Chinese officials at one point "walked out" on both her and the ambassador, telling her "the trip was off".
"Extraordinary," the queen responded.
Buckingham Palace's communications officers were not immediately available for comment. Broadcaster BBC reported that coverage of the episode had been censored in China, with BBC World TV blanked out during a report on the conversation.
Chinese President Xi toured the U.K. on a state visit last October in what was a high profile affair complete with a 103-gun salute and a slew of business deals.
When asked at a press conference on Wednesday about the queen's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, "President Xi Jinping's state visit to the UK last October was a great success, thanks to the enormous efforts made by teams of the two sides. Both China and the UK highly recognized that."
But there were widespread reports on Thursday that international media coverage of the queen's comments were blocked on Chinese television and search engines. Attempts to click on a story about the comments on one UK newspaper's website brought up a warning in Mandarin that said, "The visit to the page has been stopped. Based on user complaint and Tencent supervision, this page might contain content of vicious fraud."
Reaction on Chinese social media, meanwhile, was mixed, with some Weibo posters calling it an unfortunate gaffe, while others lamented the "loss of face" for China. There were also snide remarks about Britain's colonial past and how it had not "apologized for history." Britain fought China in twoOpium Wars in the 1800s, the first of which resulted in China ceding HongKong to the U.K.
Therewere more level-headed responses on the Twitter-like social media platform too.One Weibo user said the queen's poor impression of the Chinese visitors could have been due to cultural differences anddifferent working styles.
The queen's candid comments come after British Prime Minister David Cameron was filmed on camera telling the queen that Nigeria and Afghanistan were "fantastically corrupt".