But as he wrapped up his stay in Hiroshima, Japan, Biden seemed bullish about the resumption of communications between himself and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which had been on a promising path until a Chinese spy balloon flew over sensitive American sites in February.

“I think you’re going to see that begin to thaw very shortly,” the president told reporters on Sunday. “We should have an open hotline. At the Bali conference, that’s what President Xi and I agree we were going to do and meet on.” The two leaders met in Bali in November.

Before the Chinese spy balloon incident, Biden and Xi had kept lines of communication open. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen were both due to visit China. The crisis postponed both visits indefinitely, though the United States wants them to happen. And China resisted the administration’s repeated public entreaties to resume talking.

Then, earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, finally met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. And Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan met in Vienna 10 days ago with a senior Chinese foreign policy official.

The next test for the thaw theory comes this week, when Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is expected in Washington for talks with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai Wang will also attend Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings.

Biden’s upbeat assessment came after the G-7 — comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, host Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and joined by the European Union — took aim at what the group referred to as China’s “economic coercion.”

“We will work together to ensure that attempts to weaponize economic dependencies by forcing G7 members and our partners including small economies to comply and conform will fail and face consequences,” the G7 leaders said in a statement that did not mention China by name.

The G-7 leaders also:

Perhaps most significantly, Biden seemed to win G-7 buy-in (at least rhetorically) for extensive multilateral export controls. The U.S. — backed by Japan and the Netherlands — has tried to starve China’s economy (and military) of high-tech inputs, including microchips. By virtue of their greater dependence on China, other G-7 countries are unlikely to go that far.

“We affirm the importance of cooperation on export controls on critical and emerging technologies such as microelectronics and cyber surveillance systems to address the misuse of such technologies by malicious actors and inappropriate transfers of such technologies through research activities,” the leaders said in Hiroshima.

The actual mechanics of the “coordination platform” and implementation of new exports controls still need to be worked out. But the internal challenge to unified action became clear almost immediately.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told German broadcaster ZDF on Sunday that “[m]embers of the Group of Seven rich nations will ensure big investments in China continue even as they pare risky exposure to the world's second-largest economy,” Reuters reported.

Scholz said “big investments would still continue, as would supply chains and exports to China [and] said that while the countries wanted to limit their risk exposure, no one had an interest in curbing growth in China,” Reuters said.

That may be in line with Biden, who said Sunday: “We’re not looking to decouple from China, we’re looking to de-risk and diversify our relationship with China.”

Or it may presage a debate over what “de-risk” means.

“Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) said Monday that will not seek reelection to a fifth term next year, ending a political career that has spanned nearly a half-century and opening a seat in a Democratic-leaning state,” John Wagner reports.

“President Biden is set to meet Monday with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to resume negotiations over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, as Washington races to resolve a crisis that is beginning to sow increasing anxiety on Wall Street,” Tony Romm reports.

“In a move that could affect how schools handle book challenges, the federal government has concluded that a Georgia school district’s removal of titles with Black and LGBTQ characters may have created a ‘hostile environment’ for students, potentially violating their civil rights,” Hannah Natanson and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff report.

“Sen. Tim Scott, one of the country’s most prominent Black Republicans, kicked off his presidential campaign [in North Charleston, S.C. on] Monday, emphasizing his personal story while also attacking President Biden,” Marianne LeVine reports.

“When the fight over the right to abortion fell to the states, it landed awkwardly in Senate Office 601, where two Republicans who share the same suite, receptionist and voice-mail box have campaigned all year against each other’s idea of ‘pro-life,’” Danielle Paquette reports.

“Advocates for homeless people in many big cities say they have seen a spike in the number of elderly homeless, who have unique health and housing needs. Some communities, including Phoenix and Orange County in California, are racing to come up with novel solutions, including establishing senior shelters and hiring specially trained staff,” Christopher Rowland reports.

“Lawmakers in some Republican-led states have started coalescing behind bans that allow most abortions to continue — a reaction, some Republicans say, to the sustained political backlash to abortion restrictions that has been mounting since the landmark decision in June,” Rachel Roubein, Caroline Kitchener and Colby Itkowitz report.

“Too often, we look at these rulings in isolation, missing their full impact. But Supreme Court decisions on religion, speech, states’ rights, and abortion all intersect. The path to how so many Americans live now—with dramatically restricted access to reproductive health care that often turns dangerous and even deadly—began well before the Supreme Court overturned Roe in 2022’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It began when the increasingly conservative court facilitated an explosion in crisis pregnancy centers across the country,” Mark Joseph Stern reports for Slate.

“Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch U.S. weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press,” the AP’s Jon Gambrell reports. 

“A revised version of the Class 12 history book, whose printed copies became available this year … identifies Nathuram Godse as Gandhi’s killer, but provides no information about him or his motive. Also deleted are broader references to Hindu hard-liners who opposed Gandhi’s vision of religious pluralism for newly independent India 75 years ago,” the Wall Street Journal’s Krishna Pokharel reports.

“The states along the Colorado River — a vital source of water and electricity for the American West — reached an agreement with the Biden administration on Monday to conserve an unprecedented amount of their water supply in exchange for about $1 billion in federal funding, according to people familiar with the situation,” Joshua Partlow reports.

“Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday called on President Joe Biden to send more aid to New York as the city continues to welcome thousands of asylum-seekers every week. During an appearance on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation,’ Adams said the $30.5 million federal grant approved for New York earlier this month to help migrants fell far short of what the city needs,” the Gothamist’s Clayton Guse reports.

“People close to Fetterman say his relaxed, comfortable style is a sign that the senator is making a robust recovery after six weeks of inpatient treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his clinical depression was treated with medication and he was fitted for hearing aids for hearing loss that had made it harder for him to communicate. His hospitalization came less than a year after he had a stroke during his Senate campaign that he has said nearly killed him, and from which he continues to recover,” the AP’s Mary Clare Jalonick and Marc Levy report. 

“Tester’s allies essentially agree that the race will be a test of whether the senator’s authenticity and connection with his home state’s voters can override most Montanans’ inclination to vote Republican,” Liz Goodwin reports.

At 5:30 p.m., Biden will meet with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the Oval Office.

“They came, from miles and hours away. They saw, viewing the sobering and spectacular sites the area has to offer. And they took photos. Lots and lots of photos,” Matt Viser reports.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.