July 28—Today President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping spoke for over two hours, at the request of Biden, which is all to the good, given the dangerous state of the world. In the context of their discussion of Taiwan, and Western actions, Pres. Xi warned, as translated in the official China read-out, “Those who play with fire, will perish by it.” This was not identified in the U.S. read-out on the call, which stated with deliberate ambiguity, “On Taiwan, President Biden underscored that the United States policy has not changed and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
