BIDEN EATS ICE CREAM WHILE BORIS JOHNSON TAKES THE LEAD: British carrier leads international fleet into waters claimed by China. “China claims almost all of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory, and it has denounced the presence of foreign warships there as the root of tensions in the region.”

China’s problem is that while it’s good at suborning foreign officials, most of the world just doesn’t like it much, and that’s rapidly getting worse as it becomes more and more heavy-handed.