While there is little doubt Queen Elizabeth II was a global celebrity of the highest order, she was first and foremost a head of state, a fact underlined by the political waves stirring prior to the late monarch’s funeral being held at London’s Westminster Abbey on Monday.

The first sign of choppy diplomatic waters is that a delegation of Chinese officials has reportedly been barred from visiting the historic hall in Parliament where Elizabeth is lying in state, as geopolitics cast a shadow over the solemn pageantry surrounding the queen’s passing.

The spat broke out as the government said it was temporarily stopping people from joining the line to file past the queen’s coffin as the wait for those at the back hit 14 hours. On Friday morning the line stretched for five miles from Parliament to Southwark Park in south London and then around the park.

The government said the park was full and entry to the queue was being “paused” for at least six hours.

The Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom has been banned from Parliament for a year after Beijing sanctioned seven British legislators last year for speaking out against China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in the far-west Xinjiang region.

The office of the House of Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, declined to comment Friday on the report in Politico of the Chinese delegation being barred from visiting the queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall at the Houses of Parliament.

In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, said she had not seen the report, but said that as host of the queen’s funeral, the U.K. should “follow the diplomatic protocols and proper manners to receive guests.”

A Chinese delegation is expected to attend the queen’s funeral on Monday. Organizers of the funeral have not published a guest list and it is unclear who from China might attend.

The China-sanctioned British legislators wrote this week to officials expressing concerns that the Chinese government has been invited to the queen’s state funeral.

A Conservative lawmaker, Tim Loughton, told the BBC that the invitation to China should be rescinded, citing the country’s human rights abuses and treatment of Uyghurs.

Meanwhile, Russia has hit back at the United Kingdom for not being invited to attend the state funeral next week, the Moscow Times reported. The newspaper said that Russia’s foreign ministry has condemned London for what it called a “deeply immoral” use of a national tragedy for geopolitical goals amid the lowest point in Russian-British relations since the Cold War.

On Thursday the ministry published a statement on its website accusing Britain of “making divisive statements in furtherance of its opportunistic aims.” 

Britain and its Western allies imposed a travel ban on Vladimir Putin early on in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Russian strongman has previously said he would not be attending the funeral. However, on September 8, the day of Elizabeth’s death, Mr. Putin in a Kremlin statement praised the queen as having earned “authority on the world stage.” He also offered his condolences to King Charles III, wishing him “courage and resilience” after his mother’s passing.

After a day out of the public eye Thursday, King Charles III was traveling to Wales on Friday on the final leg of his tour of the nations that make up the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the death of his mother last week following 70 years on the throne.