A smiling Xi is a wolf warrior in sheep's clothing

Xi will be all smiles again when he meets Joe Biden on the sidelines of the APEC economic summit in San Francisco this month. In a way, Albanese's visit was a practice run for his meeting with the US president whose advice to Australia was "trust but verify" when it comes to dealing with Beijing. "This is 'smile diplomacy' engineered by Xi Jinping designed to repair China's reputation and this will go on until at least the APEC meeting," says Willy Lam, a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. "Australia has become an important aspect of the US anti-China containment…