1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

“Trump heard the laugh (Xi’s) and thought he had a friend. He has always misread this. He thinks Xi respects strength and that mocking Biden reads as strength. But in Chinese political culture, face is not what you take from others. It is what you keep for yourself and grant to others. Stripping face from your own predecessor in front of a guest does not make you bigger. It tells the guest you cannot be trusted with the dignity of your own house, which means you certainly cannot be trusted with his. Every Chinese official on that walk understood that. The Chinese delegation laughed along because that is what you do when the host embarrasses himself. You laugh, you nod, you remember. And there is a detail that makes it worse. The man Trump was mocking has cancer. In a Confucian moral order, contempt for the old and the sick is among the lowest things a person can display. Xi would not need to approve of Joe Biden to be quietly appalled. He would only need to be Chinese.” -Fantastic Lawyer He’s such an embarrassment.