Peppered with goonish humour and highly political observations, the 3,000-word document was said to have been written on the 14-hour flight from the former colony to Heathrow after the emotive ceremony.

The tract, which he called The Handover of Hong Kong or the Great Chinese Takeaway, sniggered at British politicians, expressed regret at the decommissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia and insulted Chinese officials.

The journal was released on the orders of Mr Justice Blackburne at the High Court after an application by Associated Newspapers. Prince Charles is trying to block publication of the papers.

Of the outward journey, the Prince said that his British Airways 747 departed 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.”

The Prince said 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 Paddy Ashdown, then the leader of the Lib Dems, were all “ensconced in First Class immediately below us”.

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

The Prince of Wales is suing Associated Newspapers for breach of copyright and confidentiality, arguing that he is entitled to the same level of privacy as anyone else.

The action was launched after The Mail on Sunday published comments in November 2005 made by the Prince about the Chinese regime.

Mark Warby, QC, counsel for The Mail on Sunday, said the Prince was claiming that the documents, which were handed over to the newspaper by a disloyal former employee, were his own private and confidential views and he was as entitled to keep them out of public circulation as the “humblest private citizen”.

He told the judge that the Prince was expressing political hostility to the Chinese and that claims made on his behalf that they were private and unpolitical were unjustified.

The Prince’s journal describes how he landed in a hot and humid Hong Kong and was “delivered” to Britannia, which was tied up alongside the old naval base and near the Prince of Wales building that he “must have named in the 1980s”. Following in parentheses is: “Goodness only knows what the Chinese would have renamed it by now.”

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