Commentary

An old friend of mine from my youth in Michigan attended the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Returning to the states, she visited me out here in California. She said the Chinese Communist Party authorities had made sure the streets were clear of any homeless people or other troublemakers. The air she breathed, although mitigation efforts had been enacted, still caused her to choke. And numerous high-rise buildings were “totally empty.”

She called Beijing a Potemkin City, derived from Potemkin Village, which Britannica defines as “any of a number of fake villages designed to impress the Russian empress Catherine the Great. The term has also come to be used to describe an elaborate facade designed to hide an undesirable reality.”

That came to mind reading about the preparations made for this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in San Francisco. President Joe Biden and communist Chinese leader Xi Jinping are slated to meet there on Wednesday.

The last time I visited a decade ago, the City on the Bay was still the same old charming city I’ve visited now and then over the decades. No more. It’s a Potemkin City too. Some stories this week:

• Fox Business: “Crime ridden San Francisco cleaned up the streets for Biden-Xi visit.”
• The Daily Mail: “Outrage as San Francisco boots vagrants off streets ahead of Xi Jinping visit—as California Governor Gavin Newsom admits woke city was only given polish to impress world leaders.”
• SFGate: “California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently confirmed a fact that, for anyone paying attention, really didn’t need much confirmation: San Francisco underwent a serious facelift ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.”
• San Francisco Chronicle: “Czech TV journalist Bohumil Vostal was capturing what he thought would be a majestic shot—San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore, steeped in the gathering dusk—when three masked assailants approached with guns pointed.”
• Straits Times (Singapore), dateline San Francisco: “Golden City tarnished by dirt, crime and needles: San Francisco looks to APEC summit for revival.”

Protests Galore

Even if the city were in its decent shape of just five years ago, the APEC Summit predictably would be hit with protests. At least the First Amendment right to “freedom of assembly” remains alive.

• SFist: “The San Francisco chapter of Students for a Free Tibet unfurled a banner on top of Moscone Center North that said, “Dictator Xi Jinping Your Time Is Up! Free Tibet!”
• KQED: “The ‘mass mobilization’ on Sunday kicked off a week of protests organized by the No to APEC Coalition. ... Bay Area climate organizer Nik Evasco describes it as ‘a very broad intersectional coalition that touches on diaspora peoples from the Global South, labor and the climate bloc ... anti-militarist groups ... and people who are really focused on certain opposition to certain particular world leaders like Xi Jinping.’”
• USA Today: “As Biden and other leaders attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, pro-Palestinian groups, along with the many anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberal demonstrators, are taking to the streets. Organizers with the group No To APEC have vowed to shut down the conference down and block access to the summit that as many as 20,000 people will be attending in various capacities.”

Contrast With UN’s Creation in San Francisco in 1945

The contrast has to be made with the last big international shindig in San Francisco, the creation of the United Nations there in 1945. The National World War II Museum wrote, “Between April 25, 1945 and June 26, 1945, delegates of 50 nations met in San Francisco, California, at the United Nations Conference on International Organization. Working off previous proposals outlined in the Atlantic Charter, the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, the Yalta Agreement, and amendments suggested by governments in attendance, the Conference agreed upon the Charter of the United Nations and the Statute of an International Court of Justice, which effectively created the United Nations (UN).”

A couple of things they don’t note. The Yalta Conference was held Feb. 4–11, 1945 in Yalta in Crimea, then part of the Soviet Union. Attending were the Big Three victors over Nazi Germany: American President Franklin Roosevelt, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin. The long journey by ship during a harsh winter weakened the already ailing president, who soon died on April 12 in Warm Springs, Ga.

At Yalta, FDR sold out Eastern Europe to Stalin’s brutal communist control, which led to millions of deaths and countless persecuted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The U.N. Conference occurred under new President Harry Truman. He was a lot more skeptical of Stalin, but was stuck with FDR’s political appointments. One was Alger Hiss, later convicted for perjury because he was a Soviet spy. He was at Yalta, subverting America’s position. And at the San Francisco Conference creating the U.N., he was secretary general. No wonder the Soviet Union got not one, but three seats in the U.S. General Assembly: for the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Belarus, even though the latter two were enslaved “republics.”

At the 1945 San Francisco Conference, five Security Council memberships were created: for the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and the Republic of China, ruled by Chiang Kai-Shek.

Unfortunately, Stalin was working with Mao Zedong and his Chinese Communist Party to overthrow Chiang, which occurred in 1949. Chiang took up exile on Taiwan, where the Republic of China still exists, hoping one day to return and free China from communism. That hasn’t yet happened. Indeed, in 1979 another sellout occurred. Jimmy Carter cut diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and established them with the People’s Republic of (Communist) China. Communist China also was given Free China’s seat in the U.N., including on the Security Council.

“Carter’s announcement that diplomatic ties would be severed with Taiwan—which the Chinese insisted upon—angered Republicans in Congress,” recounted Politico. “In April 1979, the lawmakers passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which gave the breakaway island nearly the same status as any other nation recognized by the United States. It also mandated that arms sales continue to the Nationalist government. In place of the U.S. Embassy in Taiwan, an ‘unofficial’ representative, called the American Institute in Taiwan, would continue to serve U.S. interests there.”

Conclusion: Hoping Against Yet Another Sellout

The Biden Administration has been making overtures to Mr. Xi, as I wrote in my Nov. 9 Epoch Times article, “Watch What Gov. Newsom Does at APEC Summit in San Francisco.” With major problems in Eastern Europe over the Russia-Ukraine War and in the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas War, President Biden desperately needs to reduce tensions with Mr. Xi, especially over Taiwan.

We’ll have to see what happens. And we might not even know what happens until months or years after. But the risk is another sellout to communism, as at Yalta and San Francisco in 1945. And unlike in 1945, when a new presidential election was more than three years away, resulting in the re-election of Mr. Truman, President Biden’s re-election plebiscite takes place in less than a year, leading to pressure to “make history” before the voting starts.

In late 1945, San Francisco’s beauty was graced by American aircraft carriers and battleships heading back home under the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge after defeating Imperial Japan. The victorious G.I.s took shore leave in a city of charm, elegance, and American efficiency. But in 2023, under President Biden and Mr. Newsom, the city is a global disgrace, and the military keeps missing its recruiting goals. This is no way to run a city, a state, a country, or a world.