Editor’s note for Monday, November 15, 2021

My thoughts today:

Joe Biden and Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 are setting up a video call as we prepare to send this newsletter. As “the two leaders prepare to hold their first presidential meeting, the troubled U.S.-China relationship is demonstrating that the power of one of Biden’s greatest professed strengths as a politician — the ability to connect — has its limits,” says the Associated Press, citing Matthew Goodman, who served as an Asia adviser on the National Security Council in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations:

When it comes to U.S.-China relations, the gaps are so big and the trend lines are so problematic that the personal touch can only go so far.

We’ll have a report on the meeting tomorrow. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

Meanwhile, over the weekend a Chinese citizen journalist uploaded footage to YouTube showing buildings in Xinjiang mentioned in a BuzzFeed investigation that appear to be detention facilities.

Events:

• We held our NEXTChina 2021 conference last week. Click here for a brief recap.
• November 18: A live China Corner Office podcast, The surprising rebound of U.S. exports to China in 2020.
• November 30: Meet the millennial entrepreneurs driving U.S.-China green business.

Our word of the day is love song (​​愛情歌曲 àiqíng gēqǔ), which is what Malaysian hip hop singer Namewee (黃明志 Huáng Míngzhì) disingenuously calls his satirical ballad about over-sensitive Chinese nationalists “Fragile,” in an interview with Taiwanese state media Taiwan Plus. The song has already been watched more than 30 million times on Youtube.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief