Charles journal reveals his mourning for end of Empire

The 3,000-word account, called The Handover of Hong Kong or The Great Chinese Takeaway, is at the heart of a legal battle by the Prince to prevent further publications of his journals by a national newspaper.

But the Prince's own lawyers were forced to release it today on the orders of the judge. The journal was said to have been written on his way home from the handover ceremony, although one section focuses on the outward journey.

The Prince said that his British Airways jumbo jet took off with a large party of official representatives from Britain and he found himself and his staff "on the top deck in what is normally club class".

"It took me some time to realise that this was not first class(!) although it puzzled me as to why the seat seemed so uncomfortable," he wrote.

He then discovered that other dignitaries, including Edward Heath, Douglas Hurd, "the new Foreign Secretary Robin Cook", several former governors of Hong Kong, Lord Wilson and the then leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, Paddy Ashdown, were all "ensconced in First Class immediately below us".

"Such is the end of Empire, I sighed to myself."

The journal describes how the royal party landed in a hot and humid Hong Kong and was "delivered" to the Royal Yacht Britannia which was tied up alongside the old naval base and near the Prince of Wales building that "I must have named in the 1980s (Goodness only knows what the Chinese would have renamed it by now)".

The Prince said it was wonderful to be aboard Britannia but this was "tinged with an overwhelming sadness" as this was to be the last time on an overseas visit because the yacht was being "ex-commissioned".

He said that there was "a kind of exasperated sadness experienced by all and sundry" about the decision. "Why is this happening?" he was asked by Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State at the time.

He added: "The PM and Mrs Blair came on board for an hour and seemed suitably impressed after the whistle-stop tour around the ship. If only he could have seen the yacht with the receptions and dinners under way and heard people’s reactions. But they are all in such a hurry, so never really learn about anything."

Prince Charles said that the Prime Minister spent just 14 hours in Hong Kong. "They then take decisions based on market research and focus groups, on the papers produced by political advisers and civil servants none of whom will have ever experienced what it is they are taking decisions about," he wrote.

He said that at another reception aboard Britannia everyone he spoke to was being "thoroughly optimistic" about the future for Hong Kong. "But in the background was the sneaking worry about creeping corruption and the gradual undermining of Hong Kong’s greatest asset - the rule of law."

The Chinese Army was another concern because they were paid so badly that there may be "irresistible temptations to intimidate or threaten local people when the soldiers discover that a glass of beer costs about as much as their weekly salary". He added: "One can only hope that they are confined to barracks in Hong Kong."

At another dinner aboard the yacht, he said Ms Albright was "good value - seemed to be well disposed towards the UK". "We had a good talk about Islam and about the unhelpful US attitude to global warming at the New York summit earlier in the month."

Of Mr Blair, who had then been Prime Minister for barely two months, he said: "He is a most enjoyable person to talk to - perhaps partly due to his being younger than me. He also gives the impression of listening to what one says, which I find astonishing."

The Prince also referred to Chris Patten, the last Governor of Hong Kong, coming on board Britannia and looking "incredibly sad". Speaking of Mr Patten's "moving speech" later, the Prince said: "I ended up with a lump in my throat and was then completely finished off by the playing of Elgar’s Nimrod Variations immediately afterwards."

After that speech, the Prince returned to the Royal Yacht for a bath and then attended an enormous banquet for 4,000 people at the Convention Centre.

"I sat next to the Chinese Foreign Minister who must have had considerable difficulty knowing what to make of me," he said.

"After a lot of toasting we left the dinner and just waited around until we could go through the ridiculous rigmarole of meeting the Chinese President Jiang Zemin without loss of face to either side."

The Prince referred to the President and "his cronies" at a handover dinner that followed. "For the handover this hall had been transformed into a kind of Great Hall Of The People of Peking," he said.

"After my speech the President detached himself from the group of appalling old waxworks who accompanied him and took his place at the lectern. He then gave a kind of propaganda speech which was loudly cheered by the bussed-in party faithful at the suitable moment in the text.

"At the end of this awful Soviet-style display we had to watch the Chinese soldiers goose-step on to the stage and haul down the Union Jack and raise the ultimate flag."

But the "ultimate horror" was the artificial way in which the flags were made to flutter enticingly.

"The ceremony ended with us all being photographed in a group, shaking hands and marching off through different doors. Thus we left Hong Kong to her fate and the hope that Martin Lee, the leader of the Democrats, would not be arrested ..."

Later, on board Britannia, he added: "I stood on the deck gazing at the departing skyline of Hong Kong and telling myself perhaps it is good for the soul to have to say goodbye and (to) the dear yacht in the same year. Perhaps ..."

The Prince's legal team is trying to win a summary judgment - a ruling that the facts are so clear that no trial is needed - on his claim against The Mail on Sunday for breach of copyright and confidentiality. The Prince is also demanding the return of seven more journals that the newspaper has.

The Prince dropped a demand yesterday that a key witness statement by Mark Bolland, his former press chief, should be discussed in secret at the High Court.

In that statement, Mr Bolland said that Charles sees himself as a "dissident" who flouts constitutional convention to challenge the prevailing political consensus.

Mr Bolland, one of the Prince's closest aides for seven years and the man widely credited with winning public acceptance for his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, is expected to testify at any eventual trial.

The court heard today that journals written by the Prince of Wales and circulated around friends and acquaintances were significant political documents and not simply accounts of 'what I did on my holidays'.

Referring to the Hong Kong handover journal, Mark Warby, QC, representing The Mail on Sunday, told the court that the Prince's description of the Chinese leadership as "appalling old waxworks" was not a reference to their outward appearance but a clear political statement.

He told Mr Justice Blackburne: "He (the Prince) was not saying these people look a bit funny but this is a splendid regime. He was saying this is a terrible bunch of people, just like the old Soviet regime, and we must not associate with them. He was expressing political hostility."

Mr Warby said that Sir Michael Peat, the Prince’s private secretary, and Hugh Tomlinson, QC, his representative at the court hearing, had claimed that the journal did not contain political opinion. "That is unjustified," he said.