On September 23, President Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews — a gesture that, in the grammar of statecraft, says more than words. The deliberate choreography of the visit, from airport greeting to Rose Garden military review to state dinner, reflects how two great powers choose to signal their regard for one another before a single negotiation begins. In the long arc of US-China relations, such ceremonies are never merely ceremonial.