One observation that emerged from Tuesday’s flurry of meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and various world leaders on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali was that President Xi stood at the flags waiting to greet his counterparts as if he was somehow hosting them in his own country.

One might expect that in a third country, both leaders would approach one another from an equal distance. But that didn’t happen and consequently sparked a lot of frustration from observers in the United States who felt it diminished President Joe Biden.