Prince Calls Those Who Quoted Him ‘Tactless’ : Philip Verbally Unkind to China, Students Say

Prince Philip said Friday that British exchange students from Edinburgh University who quoted him as making derogatory remarks about China in a conversation he had with them Thursday in the city of Xian were “tactless.”

Students told reporters that the prince called Peking “ghastly” and made a derogatory statement about the shape of Chinese eyes.

One of the students, Simon Kirby, 21, said that the prince asked him how he liked Xian’s Xibei University, where he arrived six weeks ago to study Chinese for a year.

“He said to me: By the time you go back home, you’ll have slitty eyes,” Kirby said.

“I told him that we don’t live with Chinese students, to which he replied, ‘So they (the Chinese) don’t want to mix with the barbarians.’ ”

‘Not Very Witty’

Kirby characterized the prince’s conversational style as “not very witty” and said he was surprised by his bluntness.

A Buckingham Palace official described Philips’s comment about eyes as “an innocent remark,” just like, “If you go to America, you will come back with an American accent.”

“It’s simply a throwaway comment,” said the official.

He denied that Philip, who is visiting China with his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, used the word ghastly to describe Peking, but acknowledged he did call the capital “ugly.”

“I understand that Prince Philip said it was an ugly city, which it is,” the palace official said. “The Chinese say it is.”

In an official comment on the prince’s remarks, a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official Friday described the royal visit as “very smooth and successful.”

“The queen and the prince have said on many occasions that their stay in China has been pleasant and I have not heard the remarks you mentioned for I was not there,” the official said.

‘Friendly Relations’

“The friendly relations between China and Britain have developed very well.”

The conversation between the students and the prince took place at the museum of the 2,000-year-old terra cotta warriors in Xian, western China.

Asked by a reporter about his purported remarks, the prince said Friday: “I thought the Edinburgh students were rather tactless.” He did not elaborate.

The prince was questioned as he emerged from a Buddhist temple in this southern Chinese city, latest stop on the royal couple’s six-day tour. The queen is the first British monarch to visit China.

The royal couple has visited Peking, Shanghai and Xian since arriving in China on Sunday.

The queen’s press secretary, Michael Shea, accused reporters of taking the prince’s remarks out of context and “pushing away at this sort of trivia.” He described the prince’s conversation with the students as a “very lively, jokey conversation, it really was, and to suggest that in some way he was critical of the program in Peking is quite, quite, quite absurd.”