Hurricane Katrina unexpectedly took a toll on the Chinese president. Hu Jintao was denied the much sought-after 21-gun salute at the White House last week as his meeting with the American president was postponed. Instead, Mr. Hu will now join 175 or so heads of state in New York this week and see Mr. Bush on the sidelines at the United Nations 60th anniversary celebration.

In fact, Mr. Hu should feel relieved that the visit didn’t take place. Coming from a land where symbolism often trumps substance, the leader of this “peacefully rising” nation could easily have been seen as snubbed by the sole superpower if the visit went ahead. Even though Mao Zedong once said “revolution is no dinner party,” Mr. Hu apparently believed a dinner party was revolutionary. The Chinese were reported to have requested a state dinner, to no avail. God forbid the leaders from Mexico, the Philippines, Poland, Kenya, and India got better treatment from Mr. Bush than the Chinese communist party chief.

Mr. Bush deserves a lot of credit in adjusting the wrong course set out by his predecessor, who gave a lavish reception to Jiang Zemin, Mr. Hu’s predecessor. Dictators, after all, should not be treated the same as democratically elected leaders, and they don’t need dinner at the White House.

“How to deal with China?” must be one of the most mind-boggling questions to American foreign policy makers. Mr. Bush began his presidency four years ago with the right notion that China was a “strategic competitor” rather than the Clinton administration’s “strategic partner.” Unfortunately, “panda huggers” at the State Department regained their upper hand with then Secretary of State Powell coining the 3 C’s formula (candid, constructive, and cooperative) for the U.S.-China relationship. In his farewell remarks at the State Department last January, Mr. Powell went even further and claimed that “the last several years have put U.S.-China relations on the soundest footing that they have been in decades.”

Mr. Bush, probably sensing the widening gap between the rhetoric and the reality, injected a does of leadership by adding a fourth C into the picture. He told the press on May 31: “The relationship with China is a very complex relationship, and Americans ought to view it as such.” Complexity has become the dominant theme ever since. Secretary of State Rice visited China in July and said the relationship between the two countries was a “complex” one. That C-word was invoked at least 5 times when she was interviewed by the New York Times last month.

While it’s certainly not inaccurate to define the U.S.-China relationship as complex, it can be inadequate. Ms. Rice also said the relationship “got good parts and it’s got not so good parts” but “on balance it is a good relationship.” Let’s do the math. I can think of a long list of not so good parts, which include a military buildup threatening Taiwan and increasingly the U.S., ongoing gross violations of human rights, worsening trade deficits through unfair practices like ignoring the existence of intellectual property rights, supporting rogue regimes despised by the U.S., and the list can go on and on. And the list of good parts? I have none. Zero items. Unless one equates the interests of Fortune 500 with American national security, I don’t see how the current state of the U.S.-China relationship can be described as a good one.

America and China first went to bed together in order to isolate the Soviet Union. After the demise of the Russian bear, Washington should stop pretending that the panda bear is really as cute as it looks. China doesn’t share one single fundamental value of the U.S. and the countries’ visions are entirely different. America wants to spread democracy and liberty across the globe. China, meanwhile, is waiting for the day when it can defeat the U.S. and reclaim its historical supremacy. Deng Xiaoping might have died eight years ago, but his saying “we must bide our time and hide our capabilities” remains the central doctrine in China.

The U.S.-China relationship is not complex at all. In fact it can’t be simpler: as long as China doesn’t join the modern civilized world, there’s no genuine ground for friendship between the two countries. Washington understandably doesn’t want any trouble with China, but it won’t be able to turn a blind eye forever. Sooner rather than later, Washington should call a spade a spade.

Since Mr. Bush has to waste time meeting with Mr. Hu, it’s much better to do it at Turtle Bay, where meaningful discussion has always been rare anyway.

Mr. Liu is a Washington-based columnist of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily.