APEC protesters turn out early on Xi Jinping-Joe Biden meeting day
investing.comBy Max A. Cherney and Loren Elliot
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Protesters took to the streets of San Francisco on Wednesday as a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place, obstructing some entrances to the APEC conference and blocking downtown streets.
Global leaders and CEOs of major U.S. corporations will all be at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco, offering tempting targets to protest.
Opponents of Xi and China marched through downtown around noon. Hundreds moved through the city's center near the San Francisco convention center, chanting «free Tibet» and «free Hong Kong.»
Headed by a police escort, the peaceful group — which stretched for multiple city blocks — blocked one of the main downtown thoroughfares, as it moved in a slow circle around the convention center'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, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, said early in the day.
A smaller group of Xi supporters gave thumbs-down gestures to protesters downtown, and local television showed crowds welcoming Xi, waving huge Chinese and American flags, as well as posters of the two flags together, along a highway south of San Francisco where the presidents were scheduled to meet. Some protesters also lined that route.
People also are using the meeting as a forum for global issues such as the Israel-Hamas war and responding to climate change.
Early on Wednesday, about 150 people gathered at an intersection outside a security zone at the city's convention center. The
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