The Prince of Wales is to open a charity in China, twelve years after referring to its leaders, privately, as “appalling old waxworks” and despite a cordial relationship with the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, the country raped and repressed by the Chinese authorities.

The Prince’s Charities Foundation (China) will open on October 19 in Beijing and concentrate on promoting the combating of climate change, the arts and traditional architecture.

Meanwhile the Charity Commission has cleared the Prince’s architectural charity, The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, of acting as a “political lobby group” and trying to improperly intervene in planning decisions made by Republic, the anti-monarchy group, something the charity deny.

Over in the land of the free President Obama is getting some flak for being the first president not to welcome the Dalai Lama, a Nobel peace prize-winner, to the White House. Reportedly this meeting has been put off until after Obama has made his first visit to China next month, a move many have seen as appeasement towards China as its financial value to American business grows.