From South Africa to China, the United States to Pakistan, UK’s Queen Elizabeth II met, hosted and visited a long list of official figures in her role as head of state of the United Kingdom.
“She (the queen) has huge influence around the world. She is an ambassador for Britain, she’s an ambassador for British trade and business. She’s an ambassador for our democracy. She is hugely loved around the world.” said royal biographer Penny Junior in an interview ahead of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.
After ascending to the throne in 1952, Elizabeth’s state visits that decade included a trip to the United States in 1957, where she met then President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the second U.S. president that she would meet.
She met Harry S. Truman as a princess in 1951. During the 1960s, the queen travelled extensively and also received a state visit in 1966 from Jordan’s late King Hussein.
In 1975, she became the first British monarch to visit Japan where she met late Emperor Hirohito. During the 1980s, she received guests including Saudi Arabia’s late King Khalid in 1981.
She travelled to China in 1986 to meet then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and became the first British monarch to walk on the Great Wall of China.
Figures she met in the 1990s included former US president George H. W. Bush, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe as well as former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Among her various trips in the 1990s, Elizabeth travelled to Moscow in 1994 for a ground-breaking visit aimed at healing nearly five decades of Anglo-Russian Cold War enmity.
She was greeted by then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. She also visited and hosted South Africa’s first Black president, the late Nelson Mandela, as well as travelled to Pakistan where she met former president Farooq Leghari.
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While the British monarch only wields soft power, Elizabeth’s dedication to the duty of queenship earned her widespread respect both in Britain and abroad.
“I think it’s called diplomacy. She knows exactly how to play the game. She knows exactly what to say and what to do with all these various people. She’s spoken to the nice guys of world leaders and despots and tyrants. And you know, she treats them all with respect, and they do the same with her.” said Charles Rae in an interview before the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
However, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, Kehinde Andrews, speaking ahead of the 2022 Jubilee, described her as a figurehead who had been involved in ”negotiations of diplomacy but has just been a symbol for UK politics.
”If you look at what those successive governments represented cumulatively is continuing colonialism, racism at home, anti-immigration policy. She’s been the perfect benign figure to represent that to the world,” he said ahead of the UK-wide celebrations that marked the 70th anniversary of the Queen’s reign.
“She’s done a great job of pushing the PR of the monarchy. But if that’s a good thing or not, I think I’d have to disagree and say that’s a terrible role that the monarchy plays.
Other leaders she met include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as former Afghan leader Hamid Karzai.
Late French president Jacques Chirac and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel are among the many European leaders the queen met during her reign.
“She’s (the queen) so small, but she has this charisma, and I think that she is recognised for that,” Anna Whitelock, Professor of the History of Monarchy at London’s City University, told Reuters in the run-up to the 2022 Jubilee.
“When you think back at the kinds of world leaders that she’s met for state visits, tricky ones, as well as ones that she would welcome with open arms but has managed to navigate the sort of diplomatic minefields with such aplomb, I think she really is the real deal, and I think people do respect her the world over.”
As head of the Commonwealth, she regularly met with the heads of its member states. In Britain, 14 prime ministers swore an oath to serve the monarch since she became queen on February 6, 1952, starting with Winston Churchill.
“The queen is so much more than a figurehead, she has experience. She has soaked up what is going on around the world, the politics of the world, the politics of different countries. She is wise beyond belief, and I think she takes all that wisdom she brings into her dealings with her prime ministers.” Junor said in a 2022 interview.
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