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1 year ago
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Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are set to shake hands on a deal that would see Beijing crack down on the manufacture and supply of fentanyl to the US, according to a report.
The two leaders will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in San Francisco - their first meeting since November 2022 amid ratcheting global tensions.
Democrat leaders have been scrambling to clean up the City by the Bay for Xi's visit - ironically in the grips of a fentanyl crisis which China has been fueling.
Steel barriers have been erected around the major thoroughfares and drug-addicted vagrants booted off the streets - a kindness the woke government has failed to show its own taxpayers.
It comes as Xi's propaganda machine has been unashamedly slamming San Francisco as a 'hell' on Earth ahead of his visit - while Chinese businesses are supplying Mexican cartels with the lethal synthetic opioids that are destroying American cities.
Biden and Xi have not spoken in a year. Their last meeting was at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia last autumn in Bali in November 2022
On Friday morning, San Francisco resident Christine Johnson, 55, stood outside the Moscone Center holding a sign urging visitors to step outside the security bubble to see the homeless problem that's been temporarily swept away
A homeless encampment is seen in Tenderloin District is seen here over the summer, a few blocks from where summit will take place Wednesday
With just a day before the two leaders meet, city authorities have been hurriedly moving homeless people out of sight and cleaning up neighborhoods that have become blighted by drugs and vagrants - mainly as a result of the fentanyl on the surrounding streets.
In an effort to show the city's best side to the leader of the second-largest economy in the world, sidewalks have been scrubbed, walls have been washed and drug addicts have been diverted away from the area - at least until Friday when the summit ends.
Biden and Xi have not spoken in the year since their last meeting at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia last autumn.
But since their last encounter, tensions between the two nations have grown following a series of events touched off by the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that had drifted across the U.S. earlier this year.
A person sleeps near a security fence setup around the Moscone convention center hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' week in San Francisco
A worker stands near a door on a security fence erected near Moscone Center where APEC will be held
Tony Phillips, who's been homeless for eight years, rests near a security fence on Fourth Street in San Francisco
It is hoped the Biden-Xi meeting will produce some concrete results, including the possible reestablishment of military communication between the two nations and a shared effort to combat illicit fentanyl trafficking.
The powerful opioid is the deadliest drug in the U.S. today with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated drug overdose deaths have increased more than seven times between 2015 and 2021.
More than 150 people die each day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
San Francisco's Mayor, Loudon Reed, has blamed the effects of the drug for ruin her city and exacerbating the homeless crisis.
'Fentanyl has really devastated our city, like no other drug we've ever experienced within my lifetime,' Breed said to Bloomberg News.
'I would ask him [Xi] to work with the US and to ensure that the resources that are being sent out of China, that come into either the US or Mexico, are cut off to the fullest extent possible.'
The drug was initially produced in India and China and mailed to recipients across North America. Makeshift labs have since sprung up in Mexico to receive the precursor chemicals from Asia, mix them or press them into pills, and smuggle them into the US
More than 150 people die each day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl
Fentanyl is the leading driver of drug overdose deaths in the United States, as well as San Francisco with almost 450 deaths alone attributed to the drug in the city
This image from Mexico's national defense forces shows a makeshift drugs lab in northwest Mexico, where officers discovered precursor chemicals, fentanyl paste, weapons and drug making gear, from November 2021
San Francisco's Mayor, Loudon Reed, has blamed the effects of the drug for ruin her city and exacerbating the homeless crisis
Mexico and China are the primary sources for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the U.S., according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is tasked with combating illicit drug trafficking.
Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.
But nearly all the chemicals needed to make fentanyl come from China, with the drugs then mass-produced in Mexico and trafficked via cartels into the U.S.
'We're hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,' National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Monday.
'That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren't just managing things but we're actually delivering tangible results.'
'China's agreements have an unstated condition: Void if you criticize Xi and the Communist Party,' said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute to Bloomberg.
'If the Biden administration isn't pro-China in 2024, enforcement of a fentanyl deal will fade away.'
San Francisco has cleaned up several well-known homeless encampments ahead of China 's dictator Xi Jinping 's visit Wednesday - including this one on the street at 7th Street and Mission across the street from the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco California
Where tents were previously propped up, sidewalks are clear and spotless. Locales where homeless once congregated are now cleared, as if a yearslong crisis affecting countless never occurred
In the span of a few days, the city scrubbed seven intersections in the notorious Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods - a decision Newsom this past week defended ahead of the anticipated Asian summit
Other residents - as well as fed-up activists protesting the anticipated Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at the Moscone Center - said much of the same, waking up this week to see tents that had been stationed along Ellis Street and 13th suddenly gone
Preparations for the summit are evident around San Francisco.
The city has erected tall steel barricades downtown that snake around the streets surrounding the Moscone Center and other venues where APEC events will be held this week.
The San Francisco Police Department has beefed up patrols throughout downtown.
In the area around Union Square, where many summit dignitaries have booked up the city's five-star hotels, locals have noted how the city's large homeless population seems less prevalent than usual.
California's governor Gavin Newsom even boasted about how much work had been done to 'clean up' San Francisco ahead of the APEC Summit.
Newsom said that work had been done on improving safety in the crime-ridden city, where robbery is up 13.7 percent, year on year, and businesses are fleeing the empty downtown.
'I know folks are saying, 'Oh, they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town,' said Newsom late last week.
Volunteers clean up the city near Dolores Park in San Francisco, right near the federal building
President Joe Biden is set to meet with Xi Jinping for the first time in over a year at the Moscone Center, set in the South of Market neighborhood
Hangouts along Mission Street and Market are also no more, along with a brazen open drug market that for more than a year has been outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building
The area outside the building was considered the biggest of all the open-air drug markets across the city, after suddenly sprouting up earlier this year. Usually, somewhere between 50 to 100 dealers operate on the street daily, usually doing so undeterred and in broad daylight
The cleanup left multiple crime hotspots virtually unrecognizable, and left many asking why similar efforts had not been made sooner
'That's true, because it's true - but it's also true for months and months and months prior to APEC, we've been having conversations.'
He added: 'By definition, you have people over to your house, you're going to clean up the house.
'We have 21 world leaders; tens of thousands of people coming from all around the globe.
'What an opportunity to showcase the world's most extraordinary place: San Francisco.'
In the city's notoriously embattled downtown, video and photos taken over the course of the weekend and Monday show how the city suddenly went into overdrive ahead of Jiping's anticipated visit.
City workers clean the streets and remove tents and items belonging to homeless residents ahead of the APEC summit
A homeless man is seen pushing a wheelchair loaded with his belongings while walking past the St. Regis hotel in San Francisco, as city officials take drastic measures to hide the city's dark reality during the APEC trade summit
Workers with the sanitation department hose down the street, washing away human feces, urine, and crack pipes
Where tents were previously propped up, sidewalks are clear and spotless. Locales where homeless once congregated are now cleared, as if a yearslong crisis affecting countless never occurred.
Hangouts along Mission Street and Market are no more, along with a brazen open drug market that for more than a year has been outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building.
All now immaculate, the cleaned-up streets are seen in photos and video taken from the sites Tuesday - a reality that some suspect will be pulled away one once the Chinese president packs up and leaves.
'They started clearing the tents earlier this week and there is definitely a lot more police presence,' SoMa resident Ricci Lee Wynne told The New Post over the weekend as the city-ordered clean-up was taking place.
'They’ve cleared out the tents that were near the Moscone Center on Howard Street, which tells me the city had the capability to do this all along,' the citizen added.
'Instead, they just do the bare minimum.'
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