If you want to anger China you should criticise its human rights record not its etiquette

The Queen's comments regarding Chinese security officials will not keep Beijing awake at night – but the discussion of other issues will

Xi Jinping

In 1860 the British army looted and then burned down the Chinese emperor’s great Summer Palace, north of Beijing.

“The great, the essential aim of our policy was to make all China realise that we were immeasurably the stronger, the more powerful nation” said Field Marshal Wolseley. That was pretty rude behaviour.

In the grand sweep of Sino-British relations the Queen’s comments this week are, frankly, as significant as a single rotten grain in a warehouse of rice. Does the Chinese leadership really care that Her Majesty was caught on camera remarking on the “rude” behaviour of the Chinese delegation during Xi Jinping’s state visit last year?

Up to a (very minor) point. They probably care to the extent that other people care. They will care if it looks like they have lost “face” over the incident. But the affair will probably not be keeping the Communist leadership in Beijing up at night.

The military crisis in the South China Sea, the on-going stand-off with Japan over the Diaoyu islands and, of course, a domestic debt burden exploding towards 300 per cent of GDP will matter rather more to the Standing Committee of the Politburo than a bit of tut-tutting at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party.

Yes, a BBC report of the Queen’s words was censored in China. But this is nothing unusual. Anyone who has tried to watch Western news output in mainland China will be very familiar with the sudden and unexplained hiatus. Often the most innocuous of items are blocked. No Chinese censor was ever fired for being over-zealous.

The rudeness of Chinese officials needs to be put in bit of context too. Try launching a protest in Tiananmen Square, or circulating an online petition calling for democratic reform on the mainland. Then you’ll see what heavy-handed behaviour really looks like. It’s somewhat bizarre that people expect courtly manners from representatives of a repressive autocracy.

As far as Western relations go, what really does anger Beijing is when senior British politicians meet with the Dalai Lama, or when China is publicly pressed over its human rights record. These are seen as matters directly related to Chinese domestic security – the Communist regime’s overriding pre-occupation. Those who try it can expect a very rude response indeed from Beijing.

Ben Chu is the author of Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You’ve Heard About China is Wrong