Playing it cool

Follow Us Get the newsletter When senior Biden administration officials meet this week with their counterparts from China for the first time, they may need a large whiteboard to keep track of the complexities involved. There are at least half a dozen separate, and competing, factors that will play into the talks. A big conflicting point, for example, is President Joe Biden's push for renewable power generation. That collides with his anger over alleged Chinese human-rights abuses in Xinjiang, which happens to be a major supplier of a key component in solar panels. There are economic imperatives for cooperation (they need each other as markets) but also arguments against cooperation (protecting their own industries, building self-sufficiency in supply chains). There are political reasons to cooperate, because China has become too big to shut out. There are reasons not to: If nations don't collectively push back against Beijing's behavior, there's no chance to influence its actions. There are particular imperatives for China, which sees itself as unfairly picked on, while President Xi Jinping needs to sound firm before a big leadership meeting next year. And Biden equally must demonstrate to Congress and American voters he's tough — and smart — on China. So the atmosphere is already fraught before the talks start tomorrow night in Alaska. Both sides claim each other is acting in a way that sets the meeting up for failure. It's unclear what might be on the table, and what stays off. Beijing won't want to discuss what it sees as domestic issues (Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan). The U.S. will almost certainly bring them up anyway. That leaves expectations low. At this stage an agreement just to keep talking would sound like progress. — Rosalind Mathieson  A portrait of Deng Xiaoping reflected on a glass wall in Shenzhen, China. Deng began his "reform and opening up" movement in 1978, envisioning a more self-reliant and assertive China. Photographer: Yan Cong/Bloomberg Check out all our biggest stories on the Bloomberg Politics web page here and tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net. Global Headlines Border challenge | A surge of immigrants — especially children — at the U.S.-Mexico border is threatening to become a political liability for Biden. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will tell a House committee today his department is working to revamp an inhumane and inadequate system left by the Trump administration. Biden's hopes that Republicans will back his next major economic package are fading after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ruled out supporting tax hikes to fund it. Money machine | Wall Street firms are planning to lift a freeze on donations to political action committees imposed after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Robert Schmidt and Bill Allison report that the pause in contributions, which totaled $787 million for the 2020 election, was meant to show disgust with the armed insurrection and the Republicans who supported it. Pollution target | The U.K. government is setting out plans today to slash the amount of carbon dioxide spewed out by factories and other industrial processes by two-thirds within the next 15 years, Jessica Shankleman reports. The Industrial Decarbonization Strategy is part of the government's bid to effectively eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Top Indian government officials are debating whether to set a goal to zero out its greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, an ambitious target that would require overhauling the coal-dependent economy. Climate activists from the Extinction Rebellion group block the road at a protest in the City of London in April 2019. Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg Landmark decision | A Japanese court ruled today that the lack of legal recognition for same-sex marriage violates the constitution, the country's first such judgment on marriage equality. The Sapporo District Court on the northern island of Hokkaido handed down the decision in the first of civil suits filed by same-sex couples in five courts. In Asia, only Taiwan has so far recognized same-sex marriage. Shots stopped | The decision by several European Union countries to suspend AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine over safety concerns, against the advice of the bloc's regulator, is exposing flaws in the bloc's communal system. The upshot is that Europe could fall further behind the U.S. and U.K. in inoculations, undermining the recovery and putting yet more strains on the EU's internal and external politics. The regulator is due to give definitive guidance tomorrow. Chancellor Angela Merkel's bloc dropped 4 percentage points and the Greens gained 3 points in a weekly Forsa poll as disaffection among German voters grows with the stuttering vaccine rollout. What to Watch Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is looking to clinch a fourth term in today's election, setting him up to become a senior statesman in Europe. Samsung Electronics says it's grappling with the fallout from a "serious imbalance" in the global semiconductor market, becoming the largest tech giant to warn about chip shortages spreading beyond the automaking industry. Uber is reclassifying its 70,000 drivers in the U.K. as workers, entitling them to the minimum wage and other benefits after a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court last month. Tensions are rising in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara after the independence-seeking Polisario Front ditched a 30-year cease-fire with Morocco and claimed daily attacks on its military personnel. We're launching a newsletter about the future of cars, written by Bloomberg reporters around the world. Be one of the first to sign up to get it in your inbox soon. And finally ... A year into a pandemic that's far from contained, there's mounting evidence that long-lasting behavioral changes are taking hold. A generational trauma like this has forced everyone to reassess how they live. Homes are now schools and offices, a pre-virus trend of healthy lifestyles is growing, many shoppers have moved online and people are embracing the DIY spirit for almost everything. Take a look at Bloomberg's Checkout section to see how people are changing their habits and what it means for the businesses that serve them. 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