Chinese President Hu Jintao hung out with President Bush today at the White House in another heckuva job environment.

To begin with, a small history and cultural lesson. First, the Chinese love protocol. Deng Xiaoping had a big party when he came to DC in the 80’s, Jiang Zemin had a bigger party when he came in the 90’s and so Hu Jintao wanted an even bigger party than both combined this time around.

For those who don’t know, there’s a small island next to China that is often known as Taiwan. Taiwan likes to think that it is it’s own independent country and has convinced several island nations (and the great Honduras) that it should be recognized as such. Unfortunately, I believe the current number of countries that recognzie Taiwan’s independent status is around seven. However, it’s a huge sticking point with China that everyone point out to Taiwan that it belongs to China. Taiwan is also known as the Republic of China (中å?Žæ°‘国). China, on the other hand, is known as the People’s Republic of China (中å?Žäººæ°‘共和国).

So the day begins on a lovely spring DC morning with Hu and Bush speaking in front of the White House lawn when a reporter for the crazy paper, the Epoch Times, starts yelling at Hu and Bush. She tells Hu that his days are numbered and she chastizes Bush for working with Hu Jintao. To make matters worse, it takes the Secret Service a couple of minutes to reach this lady and send her off to Gitmo. As Wonkette puts it:

A special message to Wang from a Wonkette reader: "Hey Heckler -- did you read about our secret rendition program where we make people disappear? Oh, you didn't? That's too bad. Now you get to meet the ninjas. Try hecking those bastards. Human rights was so 80's-when we were trying to defeat the commies. Now we want their money."

Indeed.

After this gaffe, the US diplomatic corps manages to one-up itself by accidentally referring to China (The PEOPLE’s Republic of China) as…wait for it….the Republic of China!! Yup, folks, not only did the Secret Service and the White House let in a Heckler for a strongly anti-CCP newspaper, but they also managed to refer to China as Taiwan. All in one day!

Heckuva job, Brownie.