For Confucius, Ritual is the thoughtful and precise performance of personal and ethical commitment.  It is not enough to say that you care about a relationship, or that it is important to you, you must demonstrate that care and importance in your actions.  This is especially significant at those moments when the whole world is watching, during a formal ceremony where each action will be closely scrutinized and interpreted.  That is why brides and grooms are so nervous: they are anxiously aware that every move they make is being judged. 

     Granted, it is hard to perform well all the time, and it is even harder to live up to Confucian standards of ritual.  But if enough care is taken, commitment should be able to be expressed and displayed through action.

    That did not happen yesterday at the White House.  The US government, personified by President Bush, orchestrated what one Washington Post article termed, "a host of indignities."  The three main gaffes are already well-known: misidentifying the PRC national anthem as the anthem of the "Republic of China," the official name of Taiwan; the heckler who was able to shout criticisms at President Hu for about three full minutes; and, finally, the "grab," that generated this photo, which is circulating widely on the Chinese internet:

      Now, some may think that these are relatively small matters.  But, taken together, they are generating an image of the US as inept and disrespectful.  This is from the blog China Confidential, which bills itself as "no fans of Hu and his repressive regime:"

Beijing’s bad behavior is no excuse for Washington’s diplomatic incompetence.

That
is how many people around the world–from sophisticated analysts to
ordinary citizens–are certain to see Thursday’s events in the capital
of the United States, where a bumbling Bush administration appeared to
go out of its way to ruin an important opportunity to improve relations
between the world’s most powerful nation and a rising rival
representing more than a fifth of humanity.

    A word about the heckler.  We should not make her into a symbol of freedom of speech.  Freedom of speech was what was happening outside the White House gates, with many, many people of various political persuasions demonstrating against, and some demonstrating in support of, the current PRC government.  What happened at the White House was that a known political opponent of the PRC, a person who had similarly accosted Jiang Zemin in Malta in 2001, was given press credentials and shrewdly took advantage of the opportunity.  If the White House had looked into her background, they would have realized the very high likelihood that she would attempt something.  Generally, it is not diplomatic practice to invite a person from a group known for vociferous protest to a symbolically stage-managed event, unless doing so is precisely the symbolic message that is intended.

    What makes this incident particularly bad politically is that it was the responsibility of a Bush team that routinely excludes known Democrats or people wearing even modestly anti-Bush slogans from appearances by the President in the US.  They know how to carefully control an appearance, how to reduce the expression of political messages they do not want.  But they let the heckler slip through….

   I do not believe that this was intentional.  I can only report that the question of intentionality is now in play.  So, instead of talking about substantive issues, some portion of the China-interested world will be discussing just how badly Bush performed at his own ceremony for Hu and what it all means for Sino-US relations.  Getting the ritual wrong matters.

   All in all, the failure of ritual in this case is just another lost opportunity to salvage American "soft power."  How the US is perceived in the world matters politically.  Since the Iraq War in 2003, the perception of the US has plummeted.  Gratuitously embarrassing and symbolically disrespecting Hu Jintao does not help.  While we should freely criticize Chinese policies we disagree with, we must do so in a manner that does not undercut the persuasiveness of our critique.  That is what Bush did yesterday: he made it harder for people in Thailand and Indonesia and South Korea to take seriously the legitimate criticisms we might have toward the PRC government.