© Reuters. Protesters taunt individuals in go well with, throughout a rally in opposition to the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 15, 2023. REUTERS/Loren Elliott
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By Max A. Cherney and Loren Elliot
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Protesters took to the streets of San Francisco on Wednesday as a gathering between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping happened, obstructing some entrances to the APEC convention and blocking downtown streets.
International leaders and CEOs of main U.S. firms will all be on the Asia Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) discussion board in San Francisco, providing tempting targets to protest.
Opponents of Xi and China marched by downtown round midday. Lots of moved by town’s heart close to the San Francisco conference heart, chanting “free Tibet” and “free Hong Kong.”
Headed by a police escort, the peaceable group – which stretched for a number of metropolis blocks – blocked one of many fundamental downtown thoroughfares, because it moved in a sluggish circle across the conference heart’s perimeter.
“We can say beyond a reasonable doubt that this will be the largest anti-Xi protest during the bilateral talks hosted here in the United States in the history of Xi Jinping’s time as a dictator of China,” Pema Doma, government director of College students for a Free Tibet, mentioned early within the day.
A smaller group of Xi supporters gave thumbs-down gestures to protesters downtown, and native tv confirmed crowds welcoming Xi, waving large Chinese language and American flags, in addition to posters of the 2 flags collectively, alongside a freeway south of San Francisco the place the presidents had been scheduled to fulfill. Some protesters additionally lined that route.
Individuals are also utilizing the assembly as a discussion board for world points such because the Israel-Hamas conflict and responding to local weather change.
Early on Wednesday, about 150 individuals gathered at an intersection outdoors a safety zone on the metropolis’s conference heart. The group fashioned a human chain that prevented convention attendees from strolling by the intersection, diverting some commuters and delegates onto close by streets.
“I’m actually kind of impressed by the fact that there’s so few people here and they’ve actually kind of gummed up the works a little bit,” mentioned Gary Hughes from the advocacy group Biofuelwatch.
Protesters held indicators that mentioned “War criminals out of SF” and “From Palestine to the Philippines stop the US war machine.”
Police donned protecting helmets and fashioned a line about 50 toes (15 meters) from a speaker and microphone for speeches, however there have been no main clashes earlier than the non-Chinese language protests ended, round noon.
Hundreds of police lined streets close to the conference heart, and protests within the days earlier than Biden and Xi’s assembly had been comparatively peaceable, with some crowds stretching for blocks, together with a march uniting a number of curiosity teams on Sunday.
San Francisco has cleaned up downtown streets for the assembly, and it had ready for potential confrontation with demonstrators: eight-foot-high (2.4-meter-high) steel mesh obstacles have been erected to maintain individuals on sidewalks from interfering with automobile site visitors close to the conference heart.
The potential for disruptions across the summit web site, parts of which had been shut to automobiles and foot site visitors, led the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety to designate the assembly a nationwide particular safety occasion, placing the U.S. Secret Service answerable for coordination of policing businesses.
