Earlier on Tuesday, the South Korean President and First Lady joined the King, Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales in a carriage procession along the mall. At the banquet, leading politicians joined the proceedings, with Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron and Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, all in attendance.
By the time the banquet was in full swing at Buckingham Palace, guests would have noticed the altered china and glassware, which have had the Elizabethan royal cipher replaced with Charles’s own. Various tributes, toasts and speeches were made – but perhaps the most delicate tribute paid on the night was by the Buckingham Palace chefs. The chefs excelled themselves in creating exquisitely executed sugar Hibiscus Syriacus for dessert, edible imitations of the national flower of South Korea. They were presented after dinner, along with the petit fours.
Sugar Hibiscus Syriacus or no sugar Hibiscus Syriacus, friendship and cooperation with South Korea is growing ever-more important in this age of global tension. The mix of pageantry, politics and warm expressions of friendship are all part of an effort to cement and pay tribute to this vital strategic ally and partner. In harder political terms, President Yoon Suk Yeol was busy on Wednesday morning signing the ‘Downing Street Accord’, with plans for greater cooperation on defence, science, technology and green energy. In his own speech at the dinner, the President concluded with words of friendship, ‘To me, fair friend, the United Kingdom, you can never be old’.
