Bush's PR Problem (Loss to Leninist leader on world stage)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27057-2003Dec1.html

President Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Iraq was a generous and bold-hearted gesture of support to American troops. What made it such a success, however, was that it managed to severely limit an otherwise unavoidable aspect of travel: contact with foreigners. When Bush has had to go beyond U.S. Army bases in recent weeks, the tours have not gone so well.

Traveling through East Asia last week, I noted how poorly most observers rated Bush's recent trip there. Even more striking, however, was the comparison repeatedly made between Bush's visit and that of Chinese President Hu Jintao -- with a thumping majority believing Hu had done better.

In Thailand at the meeting for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, "there was no question that Hu was the better appreciated one," a Thai official said to me. "He outshone Bush in most of the attendees' eyes." The trips ended with the two making back-to-back visits to Australia. Bush was greeted with demonstrations, his address to Parliament interrupted by hecklers. Hu, on the other hand, got a 20-minute standing ovation from Parliament. "It is Hu's visit rather than George W. Bush's that will provide a lingering sense of satisfaction and security about Australia's place in the region," wrote the Australian, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch and not given to knee-jerk anti-Americanism.

What is going on here? How does the chief representative of the world's oldest constitutional democracy lose a popularity contest to the leader of a Leninist party?
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China is getting a lot wiser at conducting state to state relations these days particularly in Asia.

Putting aside the demonstrations and unpopularity of the US move into Iraq among many countries in the Asia Pacific region, I think Bush really lost an opportunity to connect with these various countries by emphasizing on his visits way too much on regional security issues and terrorism at the expense of trade and commerce issues. China by contrast emphasized the trade and investment benefits to Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.

As far as public demonstrations go in host countries, China is known for putting out conditions to the host countries on who may receive and greet the Chinese head of state so that Hu doesn't get embarassed. This includes minimizing contact with any public demonstrations, and excluding local politicians who may raise embarassing questions to the Chinese leader/delegation or has a past record for advocating views/policies that the Chinese don't like. They managed to pull this with the Australians on Hu's visit.

The US analogy---Senator Dianne Feinstein (who's probably the most pro-China politician in Congress---many years relationship with Jiang Zemin, husband Dick Blum has lots of investments in China) gets an invite to a future Hu state visit. Feinstein's fellow San Franciscan House counterpart, Nancy Pelosi, is unlikely to get a seat at the table because she's pretty consistently hard on China for human rights.