AMAC Exclusive – By Shane Harris
As Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in San Francisco on Wednesday, he will be greeted with a sight few city residents have seen in recent memory: sparkling clean streets devoid of trash, homeless encampments, and drug addicts – all of which have been cleared out and hidden from view in anticipation of the communist dictator’s visit.
As the New York Post reported late last week, “Drug addicts, dealers and homeless who have plagued San Francisco’s downtown have miraculously disappeared this week as the city cleans up for a huge international event,” referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. Xi and President Joe Biden will meet on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday, where they are expected to discuss trade, sanctions, and questions about the future of Taiwan amid escalating tensions.
City officials focused on clearing out San Francisco’s most notorious neighborhoods for open-air drug deals and crowded tent encampments, including the Tenderloin and South of Market. Viral videos shared on social media in recent years have shown dozens of fentanyl and heroin users passed out on the streets in broad daylight there, with used needles littering sidewalks and gutters. The problem became so bad outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in August that employees were told to work from home “for the foreseeable future.”
But a few days before the start of the APEC summit, fliers appeared across several city blocks notifying people living on the streets that “the City and County of San Francisco will be resolving the encampment.” Residents described how police and other city officials soon began “herding” homeless populations to other parts of the city far from the summit and then put up fencing to prevent more encampments from popping up.
San Francisco was clearly trying to give itself a facelift ahead of Xi’s visit, something Governor Gavin Newsom even openly admitted, saying it’s “true” that Democrats are “just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town.” After years of allowing the city’s homelessness and drug addiction problem to grow and fester unchecked, liberal leaders rushed to hide the mess they created in order to impress one of America’s top rivals.
In so doing, Newsom and the other liberal leaders in San Francisco have unintentionally confirmed that they fully understand the chaos and squalor running rampant in their city. After abandoning the taxpayers who live in his state for years, Newsom is now doing everything he can to impress foreign elites flying in on private jets to rub elbows with the rich and powerful. Xi Jinping, it seems, is worthy of such effort, but Democrats’ own citizens and voters are not.
Such a ridiculous and shameful façade seems like something straight out of North Korea – and indeed in many ways it is.
Back in the 1950s, the North Korean government built a village called Kijong-dong, roughly translated to “Peace Village,” within its half of the Demilitarized Zone on the border with South Korea. The regime claimed it was an idyllic 200-family collective farm, complete with colorful high-rises and western-style suburban neighborhoods. Loudspeakers blared anti-Western propaganda for 20 hours a day in an attempt to persuade South Koreans to defect until both countries agreed to stop the broadcasts in 2004.
For observers across the 38th Parallel, the Peace Village was always a laughable farce, a real-life example of the famous “Potemkin village” of Russian legend. Some of the buildings have painted-on windows, while others appear to only be exterior shells with no interior walls or floors. Electric lights operate on timers, and the town is eerily devoid of activity.
Yet every day, South Korean and American military officials across the DMZ watch as North Korean workers sweep the streets and repaint buildings. Kim Jong Un appears determined to maintain the charade of the Peace Village no matter how ridiculous it seems to the rest of the world.
The front put up by San Francisco is equally unconvincing, and is in some ways even more embarrassing than if the city had simply allowed the encampments to remain. The added attention brought on by clearing out the “undesirable” residents has only further highlighted the shameful failure of anyone in power in San Francisco to do anything about the homelessness and drug addiction crisis.
The incident is also easy fodder for China’s state propaganda arm, which is always looking for opportunities to criticize the United States – and in this case, they have a legitimate reason to do so.
The one positive from this saga is that Democrat leaders and voters may finally be inspired to take real action – although the former seems far less likely than the latter. Even though San Francisco only moved its homeless population from one part of the city to another, the government nonetheless proved that it has always had the capability to address the homelessness problem. It is the will to do so that has been lacking.
What some enterprising local investigative journalists have termed the “homelessness industrial complex” may also start receiving unwanted attention. Every year, hundreds of millions of tax dollars are funneled through nonprofits that ostensibly exist to fix the homelessness crisis but have a vested financial interest in perpetuating it. A report from the Washington Examiner in September shed some light on corrupt city officials receiving kickbacks from nonprofits funded by taxpayer dollars to address homelessness.
It is possible the shame of resorting to creating a fake portrayal of a once great American city to impress foreign leaders might inspire more such inquiries from the media and perhaps even some accountability from elected officials – something that will never happen in North Korea.
Until then, however, it seems Democrats will continue trying to hide the problems they’ve created rather than solving them.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on Twitter @ShaneHarris513.
