Will Pelosi’s heir also visit Taiwan? Chan and Wiener answer very differently 28%
By Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler23% Jonah Owen Lamb11% Hannah Wiley27%
7/23/2026, 1:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Unattributed Quote, and Optimism Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 11.5% saturation with 155 hits. Analysis detected 1,449 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,350 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.2% and a BS Rank of 28% (14,763 of 20,453 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 72.20% of the article peer group.
Power Play recently transitioned to a subscriber-only newsletter.
Click here for a limited-time offer starting at $1 for the first month (and the cost of a beer every month thereafter).
For a congressional race confined to most of San Francisco’s 49 square miles, foreign policy has taken up a surprising amount of the conversation; in particular, state Sen.
Scott Wiener’s position on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
But another hot geopolitical issue has stayed mostly out of view: Taiwan.
Power Play noted last week that Supervisor Connie Chan’s newly published policy platform doesn’t address the issue, whereas Wiener has taken the Democratic Party’s mainstream approach of opposing any forcible change to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
The different approaches come at a critical moment: China this month conducted its first submarine-launched ballistic missile test into international waters, raising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to visit Washington in September.
We posed a question to both congressional candidates: Would they, like Rep.
Nancy Pelosi did in 2022, visit Taiwan?
Wiener’s response was short: “Yes, I would go to Taiwan, and I would also go to China,” he said.
A spokesperson for Chan — who was born in Hong Kong, lived in Taiwan, and moved to the U.S. at 13 — said, “San Franciscans expect their next representative to focus on the growing affordability crisis and a rigged economy that hurts working people.
As a freshman member of Congress, Connie doesn’t expect to travel overseas during her first years in office while she addresses these challenges.”
She added, “But with any travel, her approach would be consistent: She would prioritize clear goals and deliverables that serve the best interests of San Francisco and the American people.
And that approach would guide her decision on making the trip.”
The response lays bare the tightrope that Chan, Pelosi’s chosen successor, is having to walk on Taiwan and shows how she could end up having a different take on the U.S.-China relationship.
Pelosi’s Taiwan trip was seen as a provocation to China and even sparked protests in San Francisco by anti-war activists, who felt it needlessly escalated tensions between two nuclear-armed powers.
David Ho, a Chinatown organizer working for an independent expenditure committee supporting Chan, says Pelosi was able to take a more hawkish view on China, and Chinese Americans could look the other way because of her support for tenants’ rights and other issues.
Chan — and, for that matter, Wiener — don’t have that political capital, Ho said.
Ho said feelings toward China have changed over the decades.
While Chinese immigrants who came to the U.S. after the 1949 revolution experienced persecution — and thus, may have had more critical feelings toward the communist government — their children and grandchildren may feel less antagonistic toward China.
Ho said Chan’s reluctance to make a big issue out of Taiwan comes from not wanting to push away Chinese American voters who are nervous that antagonism toward China could result in hatred toward their community.
“Today, people don’t want to see our American politicians, particularly in the Chinese American community, attack China,” he said.
“They know historically what it will lead to: anti-Asian hate, more xenophobic policies.
I think that perspective is very real.
We just lived through it during the pandemic.”
He added, “At the end of the day, all politics is local.
If it impacts someone’s ability to survive, then I think that’s what matters most.”
— Gabriel Greschler
Got tips?
Send them to us at powerplay@sfstandard.com.
PRETRIAL SERVICES DRAMA: The San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project has, for nearly 50 years, ensured that criminal defendants who are not in jail return for court dates and remain out of trouble.
But the nonprofit has been in a fight for its life since last year, when the San Francisco Superior Court said it wanted the Adult Probation Department to take over the work, citing concerns about the nonprofit’s finances and transparency.
Last week, in an effort to sweeten a compromise that would retain city funding for the Pretrial Diversion Project, its leader, David Mauroff, resigned.
“As the CEO and central figure in our messaging and goal to protect SF Pretrial and the tireless and amazing employees, I volunteered to step down as CEO as a negotiating tactic.
Although I had always envisioned retiring in this role, speaking truth to power can carry consequences,” Mauroff wrote to his staff on July 15.
The nonprofit’s board also offered to have monthly check-ins and audits, according to member Sandra Lee Fewer, a former SF supervisor.
Meanwhile, a long list of backers, from the ACLU to the Bar Association, has tried to convince Lurie to keep paying for the Pretrial Diversion Project.
The court and the mayor, whose office had no comment, would not budge.
“We tried to change the mayor’s mind, but the mayor chose to listen to the courts.
It is the mayor’s budget,” said Fewer.
“So we tried to broker a compromise, but no compromise was ever agreed upon.”
The battle began last summer, when the San Francisco Superior Court threatened to end the contract with the nonprofit, even though the contract was issued by the Sheriff’s Office, which has defended the organization.
The court cited financial issues and lack of transparency.
But many said the rift was also due to a personal dispute between the leaders of the nonprofit and the court’s CEO Brandon Riley.
At the time, Mauroff offered to resign if it would save his organization.
The court declined the offer, setting off a year of back and forth that culminated in hearings at the Board of Supervisors last month.
As of late June, the Sheriff’s Office had approved a new, three-year contract for the nonprofit, but the mayor’s budget funded only the first year.
The mayor ultimately sided with the court, leaving the Adult Probation Department poised to assume the work and ending nearly five decades of the nonprofit’s role in overseeing defendants released before trial.
— Jonah Owen Lamb
NEW MAYOR EMPLOYEE: Mayor Daniel Lurie’s lead spokesperson, Charles Lutvak, has a new deputy.
Shelby Weiss joined the office Tuesday and reports to Lutvak as deputy press secretary, a position previously held by Kate Poltrack, who left this year to work for Senate candidate James Talarico of Texas.
Weiss spent five years at Rally, a communications agency for nonprofits, philanthropy, and foundations, according to her LinkedIn profile.
She’s a UC Berkeley alum.
We wish her the best of luck in her new gig. — G.G.
FARE THEE WELL: Last May, I joined The Standard’s politics team as a deputy politics editor and senior politics reporter, bringing my experience covering statewide figures to a stellar crew of journalists focused on City Hall.
I’ve had a blast covering a range of interesting stories, like Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s army of social media trolls, California’s redistricting war with Texas, the implosion of San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan’s gubernatorial bid, and a burgeoning new #MeToo movement.
After more than a year on the team — and one baby later — today is my last day at The Standard.
But my nearly decade-long journey covering California and San Francisco politics isn’t ending.
I am joining the San Francisco Chronicle in August as the paper’s Washington, D.C., correspondent, where I will cover the California delegation and growing tensions between the federal and state governments (and perhaps lend a hand in coverage of a certain governor eyeing the White House).
I plan to move with my husband and first-generation San Francisco son to the nation’s capital in October.
I will miss San Francisco terribly.
My roots stretch back through generations of southern Illinoisans and Chicagoland Italian immigrants, but this city feels like home.
I will certainly miss San Francisco’s spicy politics, which I choose to see as evidence of how much everyone, no matter their political leanings, loves this city.
And I’ll be dreaming in D.C. about Mission burritos and dumplings in the Richmond — which are worth frequent trips back. — Hannah Wiley
Speakers
5speakers27%attributed speech981writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
90%flagged-word coverageDavid Ho
215 attributed words58% of attributed speech63% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.