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POLITICS

Optics-heavy China trip reveals advantages and pitfalls of Gavin Newsom’s image
on the global stage
Sophia Bollag

Updated: Oct. 30, 2023 12:06 p.m.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom made several stops in Beijing on Oct. 27.
Courtesy of the Office of the Governor of California
BEIJING — China’s capital, home to more than 21 million people, is known for its congested streets. But this past Friday
morning, traffic was halted along major thoroughfares in the heart of the city. The impediment? California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s motorcade. People making their morning commutes had to wait as they watched a line of black cars zoom by,
passing Tiananmen Square and the Great Hall of the People.

Members of Newsom’s staff say they didn’t request street closures as part of the governor’s weeklong visit to China,
China, but that
they came with the grand welcome the country laid out for the leader of the Golden State and a man widely believed to be a
potential presidential contender. That optics-heavy welcome included a private tour of the Forbidden City, a palace
complex that served as the home of Chinese emperors for half a millennium.

Related:: Gavin Newsom wants to ‘continue the momentum’ from China trip as APEC approaches
Related

The site would normally have thronged with tourists, but the sprawling compound was so quiet during Newsom’s walk that
one could hear birdsong in the gardens. The governor marveled at ornately carved buildings constructed in the early 1400s,
paced slowly over paths inlaid with pebble mosaics and listened to a guide explain the history through an interpreter,
sometimes pausing to admire massive lion statues and red buildings.

The tranquil tour belied the reality Newsom is returning to at home, where he faces criticism for traveling to China without
a sharper focus on human rights issues.
issues. Substantive progress from the trip on climate collaboration, economic cooperation
and easing of tensions between two global superpowers has at times been overshadowed by the ostentatiously staged
images from the trip. You could say Newsom was presidential, for better and for worse.

You could also say he was very much himself. Throughout the visit, Newsom bemoaned the criticism, particularly from
Republicans, even as he responded in kind. During a Friday talk at the U.S. Embassy in China, Newsom bragged about his
state’s economic growth and said California enjoyed lower utility bills than Republican-led Florida and Texas because of
green-energy policies. He noted that in the past, Republicans, including California Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pete
Wilson, advanced conservation policies and that President George H.W. Bush pushed to reduce ozone depletion.

“I don’t know what the hell happened,” he said of today’s GOP.

 Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a Tesla factory in Shanghai on Oct. 29.
Courtesy of the Office of the Governor of California

His trip focused, Newsom said, on building bridges between China and the U.S. and thawing the frosty relationship
between the world’s two largest economies. But he took the opportunity to continue his attacks on rivals back at home, a
strategy that has become one of his signatures, including calling former President Donald Trump “one of the worst
presidents in the history of our country” at his first public event of the trip in Hong Kong.

Newsom has long argued that his Democratic colleagues ought to follow his lead and go on the offensive against
Republicans, making moves like his joining of the Trump-founded social networking site Truth Social and his launch of a
tour of red states to antagonize GOP leaders on their home turf.

On Friday, though, at the tail end of his trip, he made a very different admonishment, arguing that both Democrats and
Republicans need to tone down their criticisms of China.

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“Divorce is not an option,” he told a crowd of diplomatic staff at the embassy. “There’s this notion that it’s a zero-sum game
between the United States and China. It’s not.”

Newsom repeated the refrain often during a trip in which the Chinese government and various organizations feted the
governor with multicourse meals and receptions marked by uniformed servers offering carefully plated hors d’oeuvres.

At one banquet hosted by local officials in the city of Guangzhou, a long table set for more than 20 featured an elaborate
centerpiece paying homage to the Silk Road, with gold filigree ships arranged as if sailing down the table, interspersed with
flowers and California fruits. Musicians played arrangements of “California Dreamin’” and “Hotel California” on traditional
Chinese instruments. The menu spoke to a motif of partnership between California and China: There was a mushroom
soup called “Fresh Opportunities” and a dessert that included California produce labeled “Fruitful Celebration.”

Throughout the trip, Chinese officials hailed the visit as an opportunity to strengthen relations with the United States, a
rival global superpower.

Newsom highlighted his state’s connections to China and Asia throughout the trip. More than 4% of Californians and more
than 10% of Bay Area residents are of Chinese descent, according to census data. He raised the issues of anti-Asian violence
and xenophobia and his efforts to combat it, which he has said was one of the reasons he traveled to China.

The governor met with a lineup of local and national leaders in an array of lavish hotels, where meeting rooms were lit by
crystal chandeliers and attendees sat in plush armchairs. During each meeting, he posed for carefully staged grip-and-grin
handshake photos in front of flower arrangements and painted murals.

American reporters covering Newsom’s visit were barred from staying for more than a few minutes during most
meetings — and were completely shut out of Newsom’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Jinping.

Newsom says the meetings were productive. In many, he and Chinese officials signed memoranda of understanding, formal
agreements for California and China to work together to fight global warming. Though the agreements lack enforcement
mechanisms, Lauren Sanchez, Newsom’s top climate adviser, said such policy exchanges have helped China develop its
own markets meant to reduce carbon emissions — known as “cap and trade” markets in the U.S. — and electrify its fleets of
public buses and ships.

Newsom’s staff pushed for American journalists to access the meetings, and sometimes engaged in whispered arguments
with representatives from the government or the Friendship Association, the Chinese organization hosting the trip,
insisting that visiting media members should be allowed anywhere Chinese reporters were. Often, they were rebuffed.

Though Newsom’s conversations took place mostly out of sight of American reporters, his team and members of the
Chinese government made sure reporters witnessed the flashy optics of the meetings. One ceremony in the city of
Yancheng for the signing of a memorandum of understanding resembled a wedding, with attendees seated in rows of chairs
with white fabric skirts. Guests knew the event was starting when calm classical music swelled to a full orchestral score
with thundering drums. Attendees stood and applauded as Newsom and Xin Changxing, the party secretary in the
province, walked down the red-carpeted aisle together to the stage.

“Well done,” Newsom told Xin.

Despite the tightly choreographed photo opportunities, Newsom made a gaffe while playing basketball with two Chinese
students at a public school he visited in Beijing. The stunt at first mirrored a similar event nearly two decades earlier, when
he was photographed shooting hoops with Chinese students in Shanghai on a trip he made while mayor of San Francisco.
This time, Newsom, wearing his typical blue suit and dress shoes, tripped and plowed into one of the students, causing
both him and the boy to fall to the ground. Newsom played it off comically, pretending to spank the child and then pulling
him into a hug before both he and the student got up and continued the game.

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guiding principle in choosing which stories to cover is: How does political and government news affect the Bay Area and California?

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 Gov. Gavin Newsom visited a school in Beijing on Oct. 27.
Courtesy of the Office of the Governor of California

Chinese media dedicated glowing coverage of various events from the trip on the government-run television news channel,
including Newsom’s visit with President Xi.

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China, described Newsom’s meetings with Xi and other top diplomats as a victory
for U.S. foreign policy as the Biden administration seeks to maintain a relationship of peaceful competition with the world’s
second-largest economy. California, which would rank as the world’s fifth-largest economy if it were its own country, has
particular power to help maintain that relationship.

“California has a power and presence here in the economic relationship between the two countries, which is really
important,” Burns told the Chronicle during a reception for Newsom at his home. “For the governor to be here to help us
push those issues forward is terrific for us.”

During a reception at the Great Wall of China, where attendees could look out over the huge stone structure snaking
through the mountains as the sun began to set, Newsom alluded to the sign behind him, which featured a drawing of the
wall on one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other.

“It’s not lost on me that we’re at the Great Wall of China talking about how we can tear down the walls of division between
our countries,” Newsom said. “The bridge is what I’ll focus on today.”

At home, that message has gotten less attention than a photograph of Newsom taken about an hour before. The image of
the governor leaning against the wall, wearing aviators and a crisp white dress shirt as he stares toward the sun, quickly
became a meme.
 Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the Great Wall on Oct. 26.
Courtesy of the Office of the Governor of California

Yet if, at home, his message about building bridges became muddled by the glamour shot, it appeared to be taken very
seriously by the Chinese officials he met with. In Hong Kong, the former British colony where the Chinese government has
sharply curtailed pro-democracy protests in recent years, Newsom was greeted before a talk at a university by Li
Yongsheng, a national government official based in Hong Kong.

“China always handles the relationship with the United States based on the principles of mutual respect, peaceful
coexistence, and cooperation and hopes the United States will work in the same direction,” Li said. “Hong Kong has entered
a new stage featuring stability, prosperity and good governance. We welcome the international community, including
people from California and the United States.”

Asked if he was worried about the visuals from the visit being used as propaganda or an endorsement of Chinese policies
such as the crackdown in Hong Kong, Newsom said he had been clear that the trip was an effort to raise climate issues and
build relationships with China. He said the reception he received indicated China’s desire to have a relationship with the
U.S.

“I think it’s been well received here, and I think that’s a very positive sign,” Newsom told the Chronicle in an interview on a
high-speed rail train from Yancheng to Shanghai. “I hope it’s well received back at home.”

Reach Sophia Bollag: sophia.bollag@sfchronicle.com

sophia.bollag@sfchronicle.com;; Twitter: @SophiaBollag

Written By
Sophia Bollag

Reach Sophia on

Sophia Bollag joined the San Francisco Chronicle as a politics reporter in 2022. She has covered state government from Sacramento since 2016 and has worked at
The Sacramento Bee, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. She grew up in the East Bay and graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied
journalism and literature.

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