Protracted negotiations about whether Macartney would perform the kowtow preceded his audience with the emperor. Dismissing as presumptuous the proposal that Macartney should sully the emperor's hand with a kiss, officials suggested in the spirit of compromise that Macartney dispense with the hand-bussing but agree to go down on both knees. Still, Macartney refused, stating that English knelt on one knee before their king and on both knees only before God. Macartney said he might perform the kowtow if Chinese courtiers agreed to do the same in front of a portrait of King George III, a proposal viewed as preposterous by his exasperated handlers. In the end, history provides ambiguous and conflicting reports of what Macartney actually did in the presence of the Qianlong emperor.
English witnesses record the one knee, no kiss salutation.
The Immobile Empire'' by Alain Peyrefitte. Both sides claimed the encounter legitimized the sovereignty they sought to preserve - a claim that reverberates today as spinmasters in Beijing and Washington explain why they got more than they gave up. Glad as one is that the crew was released, one wonders whether the United States should, from the start, have stood firm until a complete investigation by both sides produced a clear understanding of what happened and of who, if anyone, was at fault. In time, it may become clear why the United States engaged in the semantic struggle and what, if anything, besides expressions of regret, it conceded to China. What is clear is that the United States' expressions of regret and sorrow are now played up in Beijing as the very apology President Bush said he would not make.