With Taiwan go to, Nancy Pelosi caps profession of standing as much as China

As Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (82) disregarded China’s fiery warnings and landed in Taiwan to assist its authorities and meet with human rights activists.

This is simply the newest in her lengthy historical past of criticising the communist party-led Chinese authorities throughout her profession within the US Congress.

VISIT TO TIANANMEN SQUARE IN 1991

Pelosi had solely been in Congress for 2 years when the Chinese authorities cracked down on student-led pro-democracy demonstrations on June 4, 1989, killing hundreds of protesters.

Two years later, the younger congresswoman joined a bipartisan go to to China and angered Beijing by displaying up in Tiananmen Square and unfurling a banner honouring dissidents killed within the 1989 protests.

The small, hand-painted banner learn: “To those who died for democracy in China.”

Chinese police closed in rapidly, pushed away reporters protecting the occasion and compelled Pelosi to go away the sq..

Over the years, she continued to talk out concerning the Tiananmen bloodbath, an occasion that’s strictly censored in China to this date.

“If we do not speak out against human rights abuses in China, due to commercial interests, then we will lose all moral authority to speak out for human rights anywhere else in the world,” Pelosi mentioned not too long ago in an announcement marking 33 years of the Tiananmen Square bloodbath.

READ | Nancy Pelosi arrives in Taiwan regardless of China’s ‘warning’, Beijing plans navy ops

OLYMPICS BOYCOTT

Pelosi has referred to as for the rejection of China’s bids to host the Olympics way back to 1993, based mostly on criticism of China’s human rights report.

She additionally referred to as on Congress and former US president George W. Bush to boycott China’s 2008 Summer Olympics, regardless of being unsuccessful.

In 2022, Pelosi once more referred to as for a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, criticising China’s remedy of Uyghurs and different minorities.

She mentioned going to China “in light of a genocide” would increase questions on one’s “moral authority” to discuss human rights on the planet.

Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson described Pelosi’s remarks as “full of lies and false information.”

READ | China plans ‘targeted military operations’ after Nancy Pelosi lands in Taiwan

SUPPORTING TIBETAN ACTIVISTS

In 2008, Pelosi slammed Chinese “oppression” in Tibet as the federal government cracked down on demonstrators.

In 2002 and 2009, Pelosi delivered private letters to the then-Chinese president, Hu Jintao, calling for the discharge of political prisoners from Tibet, which Hu refused to just accept.

In 2015, Pelosi took a gaggle of House Democrats to Tibet, the primary such go to since widespread Tibetan unrest in 2008, the place she voiced assist for Tibet’s exiled religious chief, the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing perceived as a violent separatist.

She has met the Dalai Lama on a number of events.

HONG KONG AND TAIWAN

Pelosi additionally voiced assist for the pro-democracy actions in Hong Kong through the years.

In response to the 2019 anti-extradition invoice protest, Pelosi mentioned the US stood “in solidarity with the freedom-loving people of Hong Kong”.

Now, Pelosi’s journey to Taiwan caps her a long time as a number one US critic of the Beijing authorities, particularly on rights points, and underscores the lengthy historical past of the US Congress taking a more durable line than the White House in dealings with Beijing.

Kharis Templeman, a Taiwan skilled at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, mentioned Pelosi, who’s 82, can be trying to cement her legacy whereas signalling assist for Taiwan towards strain from Beijing.

“And what better person to send that signal than the speaker of the House herself?” Templeman mentioned.

“So she’s in a very powerful symbolic position to take a stand against the CCP.”

(With company enter)

READ | Nancy Pelosi lands in Taipei, claims US’ assist to Taiwan’s democracy

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