Nancy Pelosi and China’s turbulent human rights history

It’s not the first time Nancy Pelosi annoys China. Speaker of the House of Representatives USAwho arrived on Tuesday Taiwanalready pissed her off in the past with a banner in Tiananmen Square Beijing or meeting with Dalai Lama.

Pelosimost powerful congresswoman in the country, escalated tensions between US and China go to Taiwanwhich the Chinese government considers a rogue province.

At 82, Pelosi is second in line to the presidency. USAthus becoming the highest-ranking congresswoman to visit the island in 25 years.

Throughout his career, he did not miss the opportunity to reproach Beijing for what he considers a dismal track record in terms of human rights and democracy.

Pelosi vs. China

As a young congresswoman, she repeatedly denounced the crackdown on tiananmen June 4, 1989 against democratic demonstrators in Beijing. He called it a “massacre” and accused Chinese intelligence agencies of carrying out “secret executions.”

“The human rights of the inhabitants of China This is not an internal matter,” he said.

Since then, Pelosi he criticized Chinese leaders and met with political and religious dissidents as well as the Dalai Lama. He also called “genocide” the treatment of Muslim minorities in the region. xinjiang.

Two years after the Tiananmen Square persecution, he visited China with two other members of Congress by official invitation.

But he angered his hosts by visiting the famous square and laying flowers at the monument to the martyrs with a banner that read: “To those who died for democracy in China”.

After Chinese police briefly detained US congressmen, he told the press, “They have been telling us for two days that there is freedom of speech in China. It doesn’t match what they told us.”

– Wake-up call –

At first, this might be considered motivated by political interest, since Pelosi represents Congress in San Franciscowith a sizable Chinese community that in the 1980s consisted mostly of people who had fled communist China or had roots in the much freer Taiwan and Hong Kong.

But 35 years later, Pelosi has established herself as a staunch defender of human rights in China and does not seem to care much about the impact of his actions on diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing.

He objected to this China organize Olympic Games and advocated a tough trade deal for the country due to the human rights situation.

In 2010 he went to Oslo to deliver Nobel Peace Prize imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Each year stands out in Congress military violence against the population area and long prison terms against dissidents.

One of her first trips abroad as Speaker of the House of Representatives was DharamsalaIndia, meet Dalai Lamawhich he had received in Washington the year before.

He said he came here to shed light on “the truth about what is happening in Tibet,” where Beijing is accused of suppressing local culture.

“If the freedom-loving people of the world do not stand up against Chinese oppression in China and Tibetwe will lose any moral right to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,” he said.

Pelosi traveled despite Biden’s stance

According to the press, President Joe Biden, a close associate of Pelosi, hoped to dissuade her from going to Taiwannot to annoy China during the time when USA participates in the war in Ukraine after the invasion of Russia.

But Pelosi stood her ground. He wrote in The Washington Post that since his first visit to Tiananmen Square, “the terrible record of human rights in Beijing and disregard for the rule of law as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip on power.”

He criticized political repression in Hong Kong and Tibet and “genocide” Xinjiang.

“We are making this trip at a time when the world is facing a choice between autocracy and democracy,” and “it is imperative to make it clear that we will never give in to autocrats,” he said.

(AFP)