Here Xi Comes

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping reunite in California.

By , and
296

Happy Thursday! As you and yours begin to put together your Christmas lists this year, let us offer a little unsolicited advice. A recently sterilized hippopotamus—descended from the very creatures brought to Colombia by the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar—will not do. 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met Wednesday for the first time in a year at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco and held conversations in which—according to Biden—“real progress” repairing their relationship was made. The White House announced a resumption of military-to-military communications with China, as well as a bilateral agreement to combat illegal drug trafficking and a shared commitment to working together to tackle climate change. Still, Biden underscored the divide that remains between the two leaders. “Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said in a press conference after the meeting. “Anyway, we made progress.”
  • The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported Wednesday on Iran’s nuclear activity, detailing the growth in the country’s weapons-grade enriched uranium stockpile. The report—shared confidentially with IAEA member states and seen by the Associated Press—said that Iran has an estimated 128.3 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, an increase of 6.7 kilograms since the September report. The current stockpile—once enriched to 90 percent purity—could fuel three nuclear weapons.
  • A U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea on Wednesday shot down a drone headed toward the ship. Military officials say the drone originated from Yemen, but did not indicate whether the Houthi rebels were responsible. “The [USS Thomas] Hudner’s crew engaged and shot down the drone to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel,” the Defense Department said in a statement. “There were no U.S. casualties or any damage to the ship.” Last week, the Houthis shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Red Sea.
  • Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday requested a mistrial in the New York civil fraud case involving Trump’s real estate and financial statements, citing a “tangible and overwhelming” bias against their client. “Given the demonstrable partisan bias present on the bench at trial, the only way to maintain public confidence in a truly independent and impartial judiciary and the rule of law is to bring these proceedings to an immediate halt,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their filing. Judge Arthur Engoron, who presides over the case and will ultimately rule on a mistrial, gave the New York attorney general’s office until Thursday to respond to the request.
  • Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said Wednesday that he is “absolutely” considering running for president in 2024 and will travel the country in the coming months to see if there is a desire for a moderate option in the presidential contest. “I’m totally, absolutely scared to death that Donald Trump would become president again,” Manchin told NBC News. Manchin also addressed concerns that he could siphon votes away from President Joe Biden. “I’ve never been a spoiler in my life of anything,” he said, “and I would never be a spoiler now.”
  • Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Wednesday that he had met the donor threshold—80,000 unique individuals—to qualify for the fourth GOP presidential debate to be held at the University of Alabama on December 6. His campaign pointed to two national polls where Christie met the 6 percent polling threshold, but it’s unclear if the Republican National Committee will accept the polls as valid to fulfill the qualifying criteria. Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy also appear to have qualified for the upcoming debate—though it is once again unlikely that Trump will participate.
  • New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy announced yesterday that she will run to unseat Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez in 2024. Murphy joins Rep. Andy Kim as the second well-known Democrat in the state to challenge Menendez in the wake of the senator’s indictment on bribery charges.

Post-Panda Diplomacy

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' week in Woodside, California, on November 15, 2023. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' week in Woodside, California, on November 15, 2023. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Striking up a conversation with someone you haven’t spoken to in a year can be a little awkward under any circumstances, but it’s probably worse if that person also flew a spy balloon over your country and took your pandas. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden met on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco—their first meeting in a year—in an effort to mend a relationship that has deteriorated in recent months. Biden announced modest agreements on several issues during a solo press conference following the summit, including the resumption of some military-to-military communications, cooperation to stem the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill presses to the Western Hemisphere, and setting guardrails around military applications of artificial intelligence. But despite limited success around the edges of the relationship, intractable disagreements—like the reality of China’s aggressive posture toward Taiwan—remain.

The last time Biden and Xi spoke was in November 2022 during a three-hour meeting in Bali, Indonesia, at a Group of 20 leaders summit. That tête-à-tête was colored by discord over Beijing’s suspension of communications with the U.S. military in retaliation for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan—a self-governing island China claims as its own—and relations between the two countries only worsened from there. In February, the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the entire North American continent, causing Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a planned visit to Beijing. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    LUK: The Chinese cannot be trusted. They are bad faith actors and no amount of pathetic and craven subservience from the detestable business interests in this country will ever change that. Biden is desperate to appease that crowd just as his predecessor was and I find it utterly disgusting.

    The Chinese will continue to take advantage of us and politicians will continue to pretend that isn’t true so their billionaire donors can keep doing business with butchers, slavers and murderers. Until such time that China decides they no longer benefit from American “partnership.” Meanwhile, the Chinese people suffer.

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  2. Old reader

    Here Xi comes again
    Xis dancing ‘neath the starry sky
    Here Xi comes again
    Xi used to be mine

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  3. Avatar photo
    Todd T

    That pic of Biden and Xi will generate tons of Tigger & Pooh memes.

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  4. BEE

    LUK: I think that the Biden admin doesn't really have much of a choice whether or not to try and thaw relations with China. They have to. It's the only way forward. Try and keep things under control for as long as possible and hope that some sort of liberal / democratic movement takes hold when Xi passes away. I don't think a conflict is inevitable. The Chinese Communist Party is very measured in many of their approaches to policy. Stability is #1 for them. Not only is war unpredictable but it's also extremely chaotic! Doubt that the CCP wants that.

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  5. Bigdonmck

    "Flew a ballon over your country and took your pandas". Nicely done.

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    1. BEE

      He did say he's gonna send us some more!

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  6. Iblamethedrugs

    We better watch our step. Xi's gonna play us for a fool.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Retired Prosecutor

      At least -- in a classic Potemkin Village maneuver, San Francisco got temporarily cleaned up. Give the City a month or two for the return to the status quo ante.

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      1. Iblamethedrugs

        Rats! No one got my Velvet Underground reference.

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  7. Peter Sperry

    LUK -- Apparently the most important goal has been accomplished so the rest can wait.


    Xi Says U.S. Should Get New Pandas Soon After Trio in D.C. Were Returned to China Last Week
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx_KqPXn3qE

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    1. BEE

      God is good!

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  8. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Trump's mistrial motion is the stupidest midtrial motion I've ever seen, and I've been trying civil lawsuits for four-plus decades. Even if Trump were 100% right in every single one of his assertions about this trial and in his purported grounds, it would STILL be the stupidest motion I've ever seen.

    As TMD quite properly focused upon in its short blurb above, the RELIEF that Trump's motion seeks is "to bring these proceedings to an immediate halt."

    Are you following the chain of argument here? (1) Trump says the judge is unfair. (2) Therefore the case should be over and Trump wins.

    Friends and neighbors, do you know what the remedy is for a mistrial? IT'S A NEW TRIAL. Nothing more. You "win" nothing more than a chance to start over if your mistrial motion is granted.

    For that reason, IN A BENCH TRIAL like this one, about the only reason that a mistrial motion would ever be made or granted — or taken seriously by anyone with even a fragmentary understanding of our justice system — would be if it were based on the death or disability of the trial judge who's sitting as factfinder in lieu of a jury. Thus, from the ABA:

    ===begin quote===
    Mistrials are trials that are not successfully completed. They’re terminated and declared void before the jury returns a verdict or the judge renders his or her decision in a nonjury trial.

    Mistrials can occur for many reasons:

    * death of a juror or attorney

    * an impropriety in the drawing of the jury discovered during the trial

    * a fundamental error prejudicial (unfair) to the defendant that cannot be cured by appropriate instructions to the jury (such as the inclusion of highly improper remarks in the prosecutor's summation)

    *juror misconduct (e.g., having contacts with one of the parties, considering evidence not presented in the trial, conducting an independent investigation of the matter)

    *the jury's inability to reach a verdict because it is hopelessly deadlocked.
    ===end quote===
    link: https://tinyurl.com/3xbpr7es

    But even the death of the trial judge midtrial — when it's a jury, not the judge, who's acting as factfinder — won't necessarily get you a mistrial granted and the resulting chance to start over. The trial judge in the famous Pennzoil v. Texaco jury trial here in Houston died midtrial, and a visiting judge took over the rest of the trial.

    And this is key: EVEN IF YOUR MOTION FOR MISTRIAL IS GRANTED, THAT NEITHER ENDS THE CASE, NOR GETS YOU A NEW JUDGE.

    Suppose Trump's motion were incredibly well-founded factually, and suppose that the judge, upon reading, has an epiphany, realizes he's been terribly unfair to Trump, and that, for instance, 80% of the evidence previously admitted against him should have been excluded. What's the remedy?

    The remedy would be for Judge Engoron to effectively "instruct himself" to ignore that evidence in deciding the case at its conclusion. The usual reasons for mistrial are that the sitting jury is so badly contaminated that even judicial instructions can't cure the contamination. But when the factfinder is a judge, said judge is conclusively presumed to be able to understand, and follow, his or her own rulings, including any changes to them.

    This is the kind of motion that strongly suggests a client who is out of control and no longer remotely interested in his own lawyers' advice:

    "But Mr. President, we can't just ask for the case to be over now! Mistrial motions can't get that result!"

    "I don't care! File a mistrial motion today and demand in it that the proceedings be brought to an immediate halt!"

    Sort of like suspending the Constitution.

    Mistrials in civil jury trials are actually very rare indeed. For purposes of comparison — and as bonus content! — here's one of my own long but true war stories, reprinted from my blog, about a civil mistrial motion that WAS well-founded and properly granted. (link: https://www.beldar.org/beldarblog/2006/12/inside_the_robe.html)

    --------------

    One of the worst judges I've ever appeared before was one of the nicest people I've ever met.

    It's part of the nature of a judge's job that he or she has to rule against someone in the course of ruling for someone else. More precisely, they're ruling against someone's position, someone's argument, someone's claim or defense. I've never seen a judge point a finger at a litigant or his/her lawyer and say, "Hey, buddy, you're a loser, get outta my court!" (I certainly have seen litigants and lawyers who deserved that, however.) But in any event, like the "honest umpire" of which Chief Justice John Roberts spoke during his confirmation hearings, judges are obliged by their job descriptions to call balls and strikes and, sometimes, call someone out and someone else safe at the plate.

    But it's entirely possible to be a smart, hard-working, dedicated professional, and a compassionate, wise human being — and yet to lack, or find it hard to summon, the ability to tell people: "Tough luck, I've decided that you lose."

    So it was that in the late fall of 1987, I was a Baker Botts senior associate sitting second-chair in a state-court securities fraud jury trial that had already run for six full weeks. The first-chair partner — a superb trial lawyer named Joe Cheavens — and I were very well prepared for the trial, and we had been eager to see it move briskly. Our opposing counsel, by contrast, was very smart and exceedingly clever, but he and his team were not very well prepared when the trial started. With each passing week of trial, however, as our opponent fumbled around putting on his case, our amiable and indecisive judge gave him the time to figure out what his case ought to be, so that his lack of preparation was becoming less and less of a liability. And although she was certainly trying to be fair, the judge had already reversed herself on several key rulings, and then had reversed herself at least once and sometimes twice again on some of them. Our team was beginning to show serious bruises around the head and shoulders, and the trend was decidedly unfavorable.

    Our corporate client's intentions and motivations in complicated past transactions were under scrutiny, so among the key witnesses at trial were the deal lawyers who had advised our client in those transactions. One such witness, fearing (with good reason) the possibility that his and his firm's actions might become the subject of later malpractice claims, brought along one of his partners — a "Litigator," a young woman probably five or so years senior to me — to sit in the audience to keep watch. And Joe Cheavens was indeed doing his considerable and very best to show that Mr. Deal-Lawyer had been conflicted, incompetent, or worse in his work for his former (and our current) client.

    During a break in Mr. Deal-Lawyer's testimony, I looked out one of the tiny rectangular windows in the doors leading from the courtroom to the outer hallway, where I spied the "Litigator" sitting on a hallway bench. I noticed that she was engaged in earnest conversation — with two of our jurors.

    Quick! Find the bailiff! Quick! Have the bailiff find the judge! Quick! Ask the judge to direct the bailiff to snag the "Litigator" away from those jurors and into the judge's chambers. Grab the court reporter, then grab opposing counsel, for a frantic huddle. "What on earth were you talking about with those jurors just now?" demanded the judge.

    "Well," said the "Litigator," "the jurors all knew from the introductions Your Honor made that I was a litigation partner at Mr. [Deal-Lawyer]'s firm. And so one juror was just listening, but this other juror approached me with a legal problem he had. See, he's an officer in his Knights of Columbus chapter, and they'd contracted for a dance band to play at one of their functions, but then the band didn't show up. So he was asking me about the various elements of breach of contract, and fraud in the inducement, and measures of damages —"

    "You're aware that those are all legal principles," interrupted the judge, "on which I'll be charging this jury in this case?"

    "I ... I suppose so, but —"

    "And in the midst of Mr. Cheavens' cross-examination intended to destroy the credibility of your partner Mr. Deal-Lawyer, you've seen fit to offer legal advice to two of our jurors on those very issues?" asked the judge.

    "Well, then, I ... I guess I really shouldn't have done that." She sniffed. "And I guess that I really shouldn't have told that juror that because I'm a good Catholic like him, my firm and I would take on his Knights of Columbus chapter's case against the dance band as a pro bono matter, should I?" finished the "Litigator" (lamely).

    Duh.

    The mistrial motion, and the ruling granting it, were foregone conclusions. Of all the trial judges I've seen in my career, this judge had the worst judicial temperament — which is to say, the greatest reluctance to rule, and to declare one side or the other a winner and the other a loser — of any judge that I'd seen before or that I've seen since. But pushed by these extraordinary circumstances into making a definitive ruling, this good-hearted, intelligent, well-meaning, and unfortunately un-judicial woman nevertheless gathered her resolve and did that which her duty required.

    She didn't grant the mistrial because she was afraid of being reversed by the appellate courts if she didn't. (Although she would have been.) She granted the motion because it was the right thing to do, even if it was an extremely difficult ruling to make. The weight of her robes — the weight of authority implied by those robes, the accumulated force of the system revering the rule of law of which she was an intrinsic part — compelled her to reach that result. "You've got to start over," she told the plaintiff's counsel — much against her personal preference, which was to avoid controversy and to avoid resolving controversies.

    "But — but — but —" sputtered our opponent, who certainly knew how the trial had been trending, "it wasn't my fault!"

    "That's true," said Her Honor.

    "And that will mean six weeks of work, all that time, all those legal fees and expenses on both sides — all wasted!"

    "That's true too," said Her Honor, "And I hate to say it, but: That's tough."

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    1. Avatar photo
      Retired Prosecutor

      Bill, your problem here is -- like me -- you are from the Litigation World. This is more akin to the Wide World of Entertainment. Of course it is an idiotic motion in a bench trial, but he is playing to his low information base. My only question is how he finds lawyers willing to do this stuff. But then, they are criminal defense attorneys and I have stories . . . .

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        PJ

        There are incompetent people in all professional endeavors, and some of them are very motivated by money. Reminds me of the "anything for a buck" in...was it The Bob Newhart Show? My seniority is showing.

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          Retired Prosecutor

          If you're all about money, you have to be concerned about: (1) your professional reputation, and (2) your license to practice law. Lawyers working for Trump have been shown to have lost both.

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            PJ

            Not if you are grossly incompetent.

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  9. Smerville

    Hi all. The link for Bennett Murray’s story goes to Emma Rogers’ excellent explainer.

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  10. Avatar photo
    Citizen60

    Real treat to see Filoli.
    Not all symbiotic relationships are harmonious all the time. The US has let China get away with an awful lot for decades, so changing emphases matters and is unwelcome on China’s part.
    But Russia, Iran, and countries on The African Cannot give China the trading partners and wealth it needs as its population ages.

    Not just “trust but verify,” do nothing until the pandas arrive.

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