As a former deputy chief of protocol, I was charged with the duty of procuring presentation items for high-level visitors.
As such, I watched with fascination the recent visit by King Charles III and Queen Camilla to Washington.
It’s hard to disagree with commentators who assessed the visit as not only a diplomatic triumph during a tempestuous time in Anglo-American relations, but also a soft power masterclass — including in the art of diplomatic gift-giving.
After a pithy speech to Congress, in which the King spoke about the importance of Nato, defending Ukraine, climate change and democratic norms, His Majesty attended a state banquet at the White House.
The piece de resistance of the monarch’s after-dinner speech was the presentation of the ship’s bell from the World War 2-era submarine HMS Trump to the synonymous US president.
With a flourish, King Charles told Trump " ... should you ever need to get a hold of us, just give it a ring".
As well as flattering Trump with an object which will surely suit the Oval Office’s golden Liberace-inspired decor, and the reference to the boat’s valiant service in a sort of proto-Aukus role in an Australian squadron, the bell carried further coded messages. It harked back to times where the alliance between the two countries was in ruder health.
So why might a highly polished naval bell matter at least as much as, if not more than, the verbal pleasantries exchanged in this high-stakes setting?
A century ago, French ethnologist Marcel Mauss wrote an essay known in English as "The Gift", which argued that gifts had long created in recipients an obligation that they must reciprocate with a "counter-gift".
This leads to an "iterative game" of gift-giving which will ultimately create a social bond.
In the conduct of diplomacy, it is the social bond which is the object of the exercise, rather than the presentation article itself.
Whether it was Fidel Castro distributing rare Cohiba cigars to Soviet allies, or Bill Clinton presenting boxing fan Nelson Mandela with a hand-made album of notable American boxers’ autographs, diplomatic gifts are a form of political communication that creates expectations of reciprocity.
This is not a new practice: early evidence on diplomatic gifts survives in the historical record. Widespread gift-giving as a part of ceremonial state practice from the ancient Near East to the Far East shows this is possibly a universal ritual.
In the Persian Achaemenid Empire, for instance, Herodotus observed the giving of elaborate and impressive gifts, such as large jewels or alabaster boxes of incense, by the shah to the provincial satraps and leaders of neighbouring buffer states.
This contributed to the maintenance of authority and hierarchical relations between the great power and its regional clients.
Similarly, Qing Dynasty China’s gifts to Korea are recorded as creating a sense of awe, inducing the recipients to submit willingly to the greater power’s influence.
Early diplomatic gifts were as often distinguished by their rarity, as their intrinsic value.
For instance, the fifth-century warlord Theodoric the Ostrogoth thought it wise not to decline the obscure requests from neighbouring kings " ... to please their vanity, since a small expenditure can often purchase more than great riches: sweetness and pleasure many times produce what weapons fail to do".
True to his word, Theodoric gave Gundobad, Lord of the Burgundians, a unique water clock which was said to have "astonished" the latter.
The Byzantine emperors, who gained notoriety for their outright bribery of various burgeoning Islamic neighbouring powers with cartloads of treasure, also practised gift exchange as an exercise in impressing counterparts with exotica.
Court records noted that illuminated manuscripts, ambergris and animals such as leopards were among the most prized presents between sovereigns.
The 14th-century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun observed that the rulers " ... exchange gifts involving that which is rarest in their respective lands ... to maintain good relations".
Later in the European Renaissance, Machiavelli wrote in The Prince: "It is customary for those who wish to gain the favour of a prince to endeavour to do so by offering him gifts of those things ... in which they know him to take especial delight".
Machiavelli suggests horses, arms, cloth of gold and gems as being "worthy of their grandeur".
However, cultural nous has always been required when selecting a gift.
Gift-giving can fail when done without finesse. In 1628, the Habsburg ambassador presented the Ottoman sultan Murad IV with a clock, a mirror and a music box. While these amused the sultan, his vizier — the real decision-maker — was offended by such "childish trinkets", which he saw as less intrinsically valuable than his master’s status behoved.
At one time, it was commonplace for even democracies to exchange expensive gifts: one example is the Statue of Liberty, given to the US by France in 1886 at a cost of $US5.7 million ($NZ9.7m), adjusted for inflation.
Readers will be pleased to know New Zealand is generally fairly frugal in the gifts given by its leaders and diplomats, and officially expects nothing in return.
The challenge of finding an appropriate gift has persisted into the modern era. As a former British ambassador to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer, put it: "gifts are one of the great diplomatic minefields, even when you are not dealing with protocol of arcane complexity."
That the King and his advisers managed to charm Trump with such an apt and economical upcycled gift, salvaged from a naval scrapyard and polished up to high lustre, is to their credit as diplomatic practitioners and in keeping with the King’s famous "make do and mend" attitude.
The King and Queen left the American capital with ringing endorsements from all sides of the political aisle, and bilateral relations much improved.
And, on their departure, the royal party was rewarded with Trump’s reciprocal gift : a waiver of Scotch whisky tariffs worth nearly $NZ350m a year.
I’ll be toasting His Majesty with a wee dram of Bell’s for his top-class efforts.
• Paul Foster-Bell is a former National list MP and diplomat who now works for the University of Otago. All views expressed are solely his own.
