Do you expect our President to simply blow off a government official? Even Ronald Reagan shook hands with Gorbachev.
Then he "blew him out of the water" with Star Wars (USSR went bankrupt trying to compete) as the Pope John Paul's visibility and oil prices tagged teamed with Reagan to bring about the demise of the USSR.
Exactly. Why schmooze with the ChiCom elite? They are superfluous and bothersome. They should be marginalized, not allowed to ride on Bush's coattails.
Do you expect our President to simply blow off a government official?
In this case, a staunch Yes.
Even Ronald Reagan shook hands with Gorbachev.
Yes, he did and this is a perfect example of what is wrong with this picture.
The Bush Hu picture provides one thing and one thing only -- a boost for Hu and the legitimacy for his regime. That picture will be beamed all over China and the world. Anyone with aspirations for something better for China will be dismayed and disheartened. If the President of the United States is supporting that tyrant, how can there be much hope.
Reagan, on the otherhand, explicitly claled the Soviet Union an Evil Empire. He was outspoken and clear in his condemnation of their political system. He never took it back or backed down.
Yet Gorbacev went and net him. To a Soviet citizen of the time the message was, Reagan can say these things and our leader cannot stand up to him and makes nice to him.
In the present case the exact oppositie dynamic is taking place. China slams the US and Bush's administration itself all over the media there yet here is Bush with their leader despite all of that.