APEC: the crossroads of friendship and war
APEC: the crossroads of friendship and war
Wanna see how fast San Francisco can pretend to be a normal city?
“Sunny” San Francisco shined in the spotlight this week. The freaking president of China, President Xi, landed at SFO this week. This was his first visit to the US in years. What made him do that? APEC, that’s why. No, not AIPAC; APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
APEC is the premier Asia-Pacific economic forum. Our primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.
We are united in our drive to build a dynamic and harmonious Asia-Pacific community by championing free and open trade and investment, promoting and accelerating regional economic integration, encouraging economic and technical cooperation, enhancing human security, and facilitating a favorable and sustainable business environment. Our initiatives turn policy goals into concrete results and agreements into tangible benefits.
A major makeover
The city of San Francisco realized that being the government equivalent of a feces-encrusted homeless streetwalker with fentanyl needles sticking out of her arms wasn’t exactly going to impress the Chicoms, so they rolled up their sleeves and got to work disappearing the local homeless population. Let’s face it, though: they’ll be back. Plenty of San Franciscans are grateful for this change of pace and hope for it to be a permanent thing, but given the city’s sordid history with homelessness, drug abuse, and other societal blights, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Others point out the humor of the government cleaning up the city for foreigners and the media, but not the city’s own residents. That, my friends, is exactly why I wouldn't hold my breath. I want to live.
A warm welcome
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and California Governor Gavin Newsom took some time out to suck up to greet Xi at the airport’s apron/ramp. I find it quite funny to think that prominent members of the US government practically roll out the red carpet for a tyrannical dictator. That same day, protestors near the airport clashed while others organized pro-Palestinian protests in the city later that night.
Yellen has given positive words about APEC. She also took the opportunity to advocate for more modern supply-side economic policies. In short, more Keynesianism. Yellen also pushed for Net Zero. Huh, economists who push more government on the economy end up in powerful roles in the government. Who knew?
“The Asia-Pacific region is at the center of the global economy,” Secretary Yellen said. “APEC members represent some of the fastest growing and most dynamic economies in the world, driving both growth and innovation.”
“So, the actions we take matter, not only for our own economies and people, but also for addressing the global challenges the world faces,” Secretary Yellen continued.
In her address to her counterparts, Secretary Yellen highlighted the importance of advancing modern supply-side economics, or advancing policies that expand the productive capacity of economies at the same time improving resilience and addressing inequality.
Examples including policies to increase the quality and quantity of the labor supply; strengthen public infrastructure; and invest in research and development and environmental sustainability.
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“We need to further improve our long-term economic outlook by boosting labor supply, innovation, and infrastructure investment, in ways that are also sustainable and reduce inequality,” Secretary Yellen said.
She urged her counterparts to put themselves on a sustainable growth path, one where we safeguard our planet while providing our economies with the clean energy they need to grow. “And we need to leverage emerging technologies to drive innovation while maintaining safe financial markets.”
“It’s a key opportunity to recognize our accomplishments and reaffirm our commitment to more progress,” Secretary Yellen concluded. “Our efforts are essential to the strength of our economies, the prosperity of our peoples, and the future of the global economy.”
Fruitful discussions
Biden and Xi met for roughly 4 hours at the famed Filoli estate on Wednesday. It was a perfect opportunity for them to defuse the growing tension between the two nations. Both presidents were expected to agree to revive some military-to-military communications, especially since the US government has routinely complained about China’s recent militarization efforts. The US Navy’s growing concern about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would have more than likely gotten brought up, while the US Air Force trains to take down China’s warships.
Earlier in the month, the US sent out several strike groups and a nuclear submarine toward the Middle East, a move to protect Israel and intimidate Iran. This places China in a precarious position as Iran is expected to join BRICS next year. So far, China has condemned the killing of civilians in the Israel-Hamas war and promoted a ceasefire. As it stands now, it looks like Israel and Hamas have reached a tentative pause and hostage exchange deal. This is fantastic news, however, can’t count our chickens until they hatch. I’m concerned that someone will slip up and the deal will collapse.
“ZHANG JUN (China) said his country has always supported efforts to promote a ceasefire, an end to fighting and the restoration of peace. He welcomed any initiative to protect civilians and ease the humanitarian crisis, which is why China voted in favour of the resolution. The Council should have adopted a more comprehensive and robust resolution much earlier. But for reasons known to all, in particular, the repeated obstruction of a Permanent member, this resolution can serve as only a first step, based on minimum consensus. Nonetheless, the resolution is of positive significance as an initial step towards a ceasefire, averting a greater humanitarian catastrophe, he added.
China looks forward to the immediate realization of durable humanitarian pauses, as called for in the text, to allow UN humanitarian agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and others to carry out full-scale humanitarian operations, to urgently search for and rescue missing children, to transfer and treat the critically injured, and to rehabilitate critical infrastructure. He expressed grave concern and strong opposition to the clear violations of international humanitarian law taking place in Gaza, including the siege of the Al-Shifa Hospital. He urged Israel to immediately cease its military operations against civilian facilities, including hospitals, and restore water and fuel and other basic supplies. “The Security Council must stand on the side of justice,” he said, adding that China will continue to work with all parties.”
Peace & prosperity?
Interestingly, Xi wants to be friends with the US. He also said that Earth is “big enough” for both nations. Only time will tell whether or not Xi will stay true to his word.
“We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict.”
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“Critical global challenges we face, from climate change to counternarcotics to artificial intelligence, demand our joint efforts.”
Up close & personal
I took a trip down to San Francisco on Wednesday morning to check out the summit. As I waited for the BART, I was approached by an elderly gentleman looking for the right train to the same destination. As we waited, we struck up a conversation.
He told me that he was going to participate in the protests. Eventually, the train arrived, and over the course of an hour or so train ride, we spoke about a variety of topics. He told me about his escape from communist China, his condemnation of BRICS as a new axis of evil, his admiration for Donald Trump’s toughness on China, his disdain for Xi’s dictatorship, his falling for a six-figure plus crypto scam and the FBI’s apathy toward his pleas for help, and much more.
He has a son in the Navy but doesn’t worry a lot about him; he expects Donald Trump will win and go toe to toe against Xi once again. He stressed the importance of never allowing communist ideology to take over the United States. We even talked about laogai, baizuo, and woke military recruitment ads. Internally, I was flabbergasted. There’s something epic about meeting someone who lived through such significant human history firsthand. Eventually, we made it to the rotten rainbow city and parted ways.
The moment I reached sunlight, I noticed big differences since the last I visited. The streets were cleaner, the stench of urine was not so strong, and the homeless were tucked away into the crevices of city infrastructure (for the most part). Still, if someone was looking hard enough, they could find dabs of human feces, a condom, and other garbage littered about the ground here and there. It didn’t take long wandering the streets of the city before I bumped into SFPD, CHP, Secret Service, and more demonstrators either. The streets near APEC were crawling with them. Some of the demonstrators were handing out political pamphlets.
For the demonstrators, there were a variety of reasons why people were upset with APEC, China, and Xi. Some wanted a free Tibet and free Uyghurs, while others warned about the dangers of communism and mirrored allegations of the CCP harvesting the organs of the Falun Gong. I wandered the streets of San Francisco near APEC and socialized with protestors after I discovered that the summit proper was closed to the public. Damn. Thick metal barricades walled off the normies from the ruling elite and friends while anyone dumb enough to gatecrash would be at risk of getting arrested. No thanks. Tempers flared between opposing sides, but things stayed mostly peaceful.
Despite the Asia-Pacific being the center of attention, there were still moments here and there that reminded me of the Israel-Hamas war. A Palestinian flag was being drawn on the sidewalk in chalk, “Free Gaza” graffiti on a digital sign, and defaced posters of Hamas’ kidnapping victims stuck out the most.
Back to business
The Secretary of State Antony Blinken did a sit-down interview with PBS on US-China relations.
“We have got an intense competition with China. We want to make sure it doesn't veer into conflict. And, at the same time, where we can find places to cooperate that really advance the interests of the American people, we're going to do that.
When it comes to avoiding conflict, we have had a series of near-misses with Chinese planes, Chinese boats coming dangerously close in very dangerous ways to our own. We hadn't had military-to-military contact between our countries in well over a year. We reestablished that, both at the highest levels and also at the operational level. That's an important way to avoid any mistakes, any miscalculations that could lead to conflict.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken
During a news conference after his 4-hour meet-and-greet with Xi, Biden affirmed his belief that the Chinese president is a dictator. Secretary of State Antony Blinken noticeably winced and squirmed in the front row as Biden branded Xi a dictator. It was hilarious.
"Look, he is. He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours.”
As expected, the CCP bit back with their own response. While I wholeheartedly agree with calling Xi a dictator, this exchange was quite embarrassing. Was this on purpose? Was the United States trying to convey an image of discord and instability?
"This statement is extremely wrong and irresponsible political manipulation."
Chinese government spokesperson Mao Ning
“President Biden emphasized that the United States and China are in competition, noting that the United States would continue to invest in the sources of American strength at home and align with allies and partners around the world. He stressed that the United States would always stand up for its interests, its values, and its allies and partners. He reiterated that the world expects the United States and China to manage competition responsibly to prevent it from veering into conflict, confrontation, or a new Cold War.”
By 3 PM or so, most of the protests had started dying down. The weather was turning to shit fast, and my battery was almost dead, so I decided now was the best time to make my way back home. Even though I didn’t see too many crazy things, crazy things did happen. For example, an APEC volunteer got arrested for punching a protestor in the mouth while surrounded by cops. On the way back, I struck up a conversation with an SF city employee heading home. I remembered the elderly Chinese gentleman I met on the BART and so I asked him about APEC and the protests. He expressed his sympathies by saying, “Hey, man. Everybody’s gotta fight for something.” I think he was right.