Hello and welcome to background briefing available 24-7 at background briefing.org. I'm me and

Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news. We'll begin

with the summit meeting between President Biden and Xi Jinping, at which the Chinese leader

stressed that for, quote, the most important bilateral relationship in the world, it is unrealistic

for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences

for both sides. Joining us to go beyond cliches into what the U.S. can do to reach out to the

Chinese people, many of whom do not like their government or its leader, is Yachou Wang,

research director for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at Freedom House.

Previously, she was the senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch

and also worked on press freedom issues in China and other Asian countries

for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

We will discuss her article at the Los Angeles Times.

Tough talk from Biden at APEC won't move Xi Jinping.

Here's what will.

Then with an outburst of schoolyard taunts and threats of violence in Congress from representatives and senators,

we'll discuss the breakdown of decorum and what is behind it with Joanne Freeman, a professor

of American history and of American Studies at Yale University, who specializes in the politics

and political culture of the revolutionary and early national periods of American history.

Her books include Alexander Hamilton, writings, affairs of honor, national

politics in the New Republic, and the Field of Blood, Congressional Violence in Antebellum America.

Then finally, we'll examine why Americans have an appetite for disinformation and how the

press should handle increasingly hateful and fascistic threats coming from Trump.

...