The Joe and Zinping show

Big one for the diary: Monday November 15th, in the evening. This is the date chosen by Washington and Beijing for the virtual summit between President Joe Biden and President Xi Zinping. Joe must remember that Xi (Shee) is his Chinese counterpart's surname and Zinping his first given name. They do it the other way around in China. I hope he remembers. If he starts the dialogue, "Now look here, Xi..." dear old smiley Zinping might not take too kindly to the abrupt use of his surname. But I expect it will be all right because each leader will no doubt refer to each other as Mr President. Always the safest. If they get chummy - though unlikely - they might revert to Joe and Zinping. Strangely, the vibes seem to be pretty good. John Kerry, Biden's climate csar, has announced a deal with the Chinese to go it together on pushing for climate action which was quite a surprise seeing as how Xi didn't turn up for the Glasgow COP26. But that's a good sign at least for the Monday summit. And it would be terrific if Joe and Zinping could find a formula of words that lowered the temperature somewhat (climate temperature and every other sort of temperature). Tension has been building up, particularly over the South China Sea and Taiwan and all that fuss about Beijing's launching of a hypersonic glider vehicle in orbit around the globe. But these two leaders need to get on. The world is too complex and filled with so many dangers that we can do without having Biden and Xi at each other's throats. Some nice soft selling please on Monday so we can all sleep better at night. The trouble is Joe is only going to be president for a limited period whereas Zinping is waiting to be confirmed as president for life, so he has time on his side. But even so, if he wants to build China into a military and economic superpower by 2049, he would be wise to get on with it without acting the big bully in Indo-China and making the West think he is prepared to fight a war. Cool down Xi and you'll find Biden quite a decent companion.