THE BUZZ: PANDA POLITICS — San Francisco Mayor London Breed jets off to China tomorrow with big ambitions: She’s hoping to shore up U.S. ties with Beijing amid tensions; bolster her own image with voters ahead of an election; and — perhaps the biggest win — bring home a panda. Breed tells Playbook she received the personal invitation to visit China and talk pandas in February from Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao, who wrote: “Giant pandas are a symbol of friendship between China and the U.S.,” adding: “I hope that you and the people of San Francisco will host giant pandas at an early date.” “He called it panda diplomacy,” Breed quipped, recalling her meeting with another diplomat who hand-delivered the letter. “This is really about relationship building and confidence.” But the symbolic nature of so-called panda diplomacy is serious. The Chinese government has long used pandas as a form of leverage with the U.S. and other countries, and it’s no coincidence that only one zoo in the country, Atlanta, now has pandas after several years of chilly relations. For Breed, it would be a major coup as she tries to rebuild ties with the city’s large Asian American community, who’ve played a central role in recent elections like the recall of a progressive district attorney and three school board members. Breed’s nine-day trade and cultural mission reflects both the importance of San Francisco's unique role in efforts to improve the United States’ rocky ties with the communist country — as well as the high stakes of the relationship for Breed’s own political future. The trip, Breed’s first junket to China as mayor, comes as she faces a tough reelection fight in November. Her survival could depend on support from the city’s powerful electorate of Chinese-speaking voters. Breed said she’s hoping her diplomatic foray results in Chinese leaders agreeing to expand business and tourism ties, open a university campus in downtown and — all animal jokes aside — a commitment to loan giant pandas to the San Francisco Zoo. “She will have established a great, great feat,” said retired Judge Lillian Sing, a longtime Chinatown leader in San Francisco and the first AAPI female judge in Northern California. Sing, who hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the mayor’s race, noted the potential boost for Breed, if the trip is a success. “Politically, she’s clever to do it,” Sing said, though cautioned that many Chinese voters in the city are perplexed by its many challenges including a housing shortage and problems with crime. It’s hard to overstate the power of AAPI voters in San Francisco, which is home to the oldest Chinatown and the largest concentration of Chinese-speaking residents of any major American city. The city is also celebrating the 45-year anniversary of its sister city relationship with Shanghai this year. All of Breed’s major opponents — Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell and nonprofit executive Daniel Lurie — are aggressively courting AAPI voters in Chinatown and westside neighborhoods like the Sunset and Richmond. But Breed downplayed the political timing of her trip, saying she would have visited China several times already if not for the pandemic that dominated the start of her administration. “This is really about my job and the work that I need to do,” Breed said. She then took a swipe at her opponents: “The difference between me and them is I still have to be mayor.” Breed said her invitation to visit the country came after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited San Francisco last November for the APEC summit. The mayor greeted Xi on the tarmac at SFO and also attended his state dinner, where she said the invite to visit China originated. It’s unclear if Breed will be able to meet with Xi during her trip. If she does, she said she plans to avoid any sensitive topics, including concerns about how Chinese chemical companies provide many of the precursor ingredients to make fentanyl — the drug fueling record overdose deaths in San Francisco. “As a mayor, my lane is really about San Francisco, tourism, pandas and relationship building,” she said, noting Xi recently agreed to talks to combat the fentanyl crisis. GOOD MORNING. Happy Friday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. Now you can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts now. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Returning to California after a week of spring break fun with the fam.
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