Keep your expectations low for Biden-Xi meeting


On Wednesday, Nov. 15, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet in San Francisco, marking their first meeting in a year. Their agenda includes discussions on the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, efforts to control the flow of fentanyl from China to the U.S., and the opening of military communication channels between the two superpowers.

Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan thinks the summit couldn’t come at a better time, but he has low expectations for substantial progress.

Excerpted from Peter’s Nov. 15 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:

President Biden and Chairman Xi Jinping will have a private meeting at the APEC Summit in San Francisco. I’m not overly optimistic about getting any meaningful information out of this hospice meetup, but it’s better than nothing.

Thanks to the cult of personality established by Xi, getting a message to him is damn near impossible. At the very least, we’re going straight to the source this time, and we’ll get an opportunity to assess the current state of the Chinese leader.

So keep an eye out for some updates after this meeting concludes, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up for anything too exciting…