US-China talk past each other on most issues, but at least they’re still talking

News Snapshot:

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his just-concluded latest visit to China with a stop at a Beijing record store where he bought albums by Taylor Swift and Chinese rocker Dou Wei in a symbolic nod to cross-cultural exchanges and understanding he had been promoting for three days. Music, he said at the Li-Pi shop on his way to the airport late Friday, “is the best connector, regardless of geography.” Yet Swift’s “Midnights” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” could just as easily represent the seemingly intractable divisions in the deeply troubled relationship between the world’s...