San Francisco raises Chinese flag, highlights cultural exchanges

China's national anthem played on the balcony of San Francisco City Hall on Wednesday as Mayor Daniel Lurie and Chinese Consul General Zhang Jianmin raised the Chinese flag, marking the country's 77th anniversary with calls to strengthen ties through cultural and student exchanges.

Surrounded by guests and journalists, Zhang, his wife Zheng Xin and other attendees sang along. The ceremony, jointly hosted by the Chinese consulate and the city government, also included San Francisco's chief of protocol, Penny Coulter.

Speaking to China Daily afterwards, Lurie said the value of ties between cities depends on building bridges between people.

"What I appreciate is that our subnational ties, building people-to-people bridges," he said. "The most important bridges are not made of steel, but they are built between people, and I look forward to it."

Those ties have a long history in San Francisco. The city has the highest concentration of residents of Chinese descent among major US cities. It established a sister-city relationship with Shanghai in 1980, the first between Chinese and US cities. It has held the flag-raising ceremony for many years to recognize its Chinese community and relationship with China.

Lurie also proclaimed Oct 1, 2026, China's National Day, as "China-US Friendship and Heritage Day" in San Francisco.

At a reception hosted by Zhang and Coulter in the mayor's office, the Chinese flag appeared again in miniature around a bouquet of red carnations. Chinese delicacies were laid out on a table, each labeled with its name in Chinese and an English translation.

Zhang told guests that the ceremony recognized the Chinese community's contributions to the city while representing a shared commitment to strengthening San Francisco's friendship with China.

Coulter said more than one in five San Franciscans was of Chinese background and described the city as home to one of the largest Chinese communities outside Asia.

"We know San Francisco would not be the San Francisco that we all love without our Chinese community," she said.

The reception also offered a glimpse of exchanges still in process. The two sides were keeping in close contact over staging San Francisco Opera's Monkey King in Shanghai and preparing for Chinese giant pandas at San Francisco Zoo once their new home was ready, said Zhang.

The prospect of pandas drew immediate applause from the audience, which included local elected officials and representatives of the Chinese community.

The cultural projects build on ties renewed during Lurie's first international trip as mayor, which took him to Shanghai in April. Coulter said San Francisco's music conservatory, ballet, opera and Academy of Sciences each signed memorandums during the visit to reinvigorate those relationships.

Reflecting on Ping-Pong Diplomacy, she said, "It reminds us that diplomacy does not always begin in a conference room. It begins with one person reaching out to another."

She said each generation had their own opportunity and responsibility to "strengthen the knot", and "the thread is now in all our hands".

For Zhang and Lurie, students were another part of that effort to sustain the relations. China has announced an initiative to invite 100,000 American students to visit over the next five years.

"I look forward to sending off more students from San Francisco and Bay Area to depart from here to Shanghai, Shenzhen, and so many other Chinese cities," he said.

Lurie said the city already had student exchange programs with Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen. "The consul general and I hosted those students here in our office earlier this year, and we look forward to continuing that and building bridges between our two countries, and between Shanghai and San Francisco in particular," he said.

liazhu@chinadailyusa.com