Queen Has ‘Jolly’ Visit With Deng, Climbs Great Wall

PEKING — Queen Elizabeth II, on the first visit to Peking by a British monarch, met China’s top leader today and later turned tourist, climbing the serpentine Great Wall of China and strolling through the burial ground of 13 Ming Dynasty emperors.

“Thank you for coming to see an old man like me,” said 82-year-old senior leader Deng Xiaoping during a meeting with the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on the third day of their weeklong visit.

A British spokesman, describing the meeting as “very jolly,” said he doubts “anything very much of substance” was discussed.

At the queen’s request, the Badaling section of the 3,600-mile-long wall was not cleared of tourists during her visit. The queen stopped several times to take photos and at the end of her jaunt was presented with a certificate reading “I climbed the Great Wall.”