Dueling demonstrations

I knew this would be a good week to be out of San Francisco. APEC (the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation forum) seems to have brought out the expected raft of protest contingents. One might have expected that the Gaza war, Ukraine, and climate to be main themes, but that wasn't all.

Mission Local covers what seems to me the most interesting aspect of the San Francisco response to the arrival of Chinese President Xi and his meeting with US Prez Joe Biden: dueling Chinese demonstrators.

Flying in from New York and Philadelphia, supporters of Chinese President Xi Jinping waved red Chinese flags and greeted the president’s motorcade on Tuesday, part of a hundreds-strong rally outside the St. Regis Hotel in downtown San Francisco, where Xi is reportedly staying.

“I just want to see him, even if it’s probably just seeing his car going by with a tiny Chinese flag on it,” said Lily Tan, a Chinese national who lives in San Francisco to attend language school.

But Xi's admirers had competitors.

On Wednesday morning, hundreds of demonstrators marched from the Chinese consulate to the security gates near APEC downtown, lambasting what they called human rights abuses by the Chinese government. 

“Shame!” bellowed Jigme Ugen from the Tibetan National Congress outside the consulate, eliciting boos from an internationally-diverse crowd.

... Speakers — from China, Tibet, Hong Kong, and more — advocated against a host of issues: China’s forced education schools and lack of media in Tibet, its political prisoners, its influence in Taiwan, violence against Uyghurs, and its crackdown against Hong Kong.

Alex Chow, who was imprisoned in 2017 for organizing the Umbrella Protest as a student in 2014 and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, described the experience as torturous, especially of seeing his mom behind the glass. One of his co-organizers still is not free, he said, and another is in exile. ...

San Francisco has long been a place where intra-Chinese conflicts manifest visibly. Walking down Chinatown's Grant Avenue, if you look, you can see flags of both the People's Republic and of Taiwan on different buildings and shops. Mostly tourists are oblivious, but China is close by for many San Franciscans.