According to the definition of a tragic hero, one must have a fatal flaw that brings about their destruction, and they must be able to elicit pity and sympathy from the audience. If your character is unsympathetic or if the character fails because of outside forces, they are not a tragic hero. Rene Gallimard, although he does perform many foolish actions, seems to fit the archetype of tragic hero quite well.
Gallimard has a fatal flaw that messes up his circumstances throughout the story. His inability to properly judge other characters and interpret social scenes leads to some bumbling awkwardness and in the end leads to his downfall. He tries to take Song to be a submissive wife, assuming that Song will bow before him: a Westerner. In reality, Song is a strong man who has no such desires. This inability to understand the people around him brings about his...
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tragic end.
Additionally, Gallimard's situation deteriorates over time, making him more and more miserable. As he becomes more miserable and disheartened, his character elicits more sympathy from the audience. This act of drawing out sympathy endears him to the audience, in spite of their knowledge of his downfall. This makes him a tragic figure in their eyes.
The first point to make when answering questions of this type is that the question is based on a logical fallacy known as the false dilemma (sometimes called "black and white thinking"). It presents us with two alternatives and asks us to apply one of them to a character as though he must be one or the other, when it is perfectly possible that he, like most people, is neither. I do not think I am either a tragic hero or a delusional fool and probably neither do you. Paradoxically, of course, if you think you are a delusional fool, you have probably stopped being one.
With this caveat, however, there is no convincing case to be made for Gallimard as a tragic hero but there are reasons to consider him a delusional fool. The character of Gallimard is based at least partly on Bernard Boursicot, a French diplomat who was seduced by a male Peking opera singer Boursicot believed to be female. However, David Henry Hwang changed several important details to make Gallimard a more pathetic and deluded figure. Chief among these was the gory and undignified manner of his death by seppuku. This demonstrates that he is unable to live with and never quite appreciates the nature of his delusion. Bernard Boursicot, at the time of writing, is still alive.