US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that she saw no progress in China on human rights, regretting that neither economic reforms nor US pressure were making Beijing budge.
But Pelosi vowed to be “relentless” in keeping the heat on Beijing over its human rights record, rejecting suggestions that she backed away from her longtime advocacy on the issue during a recent trip to China.
Pelosi deplored that Beijing was still holding prisoners for taking part in the Tiananmen Square democracy protests crushed 20 years ago.
“Twenty years later people are still being incarcerated for speaking out about anything other than the party line,” Pelosi said. “I don't know that this is an evolution.”
“I know that just our advocacy didn't accomplish any more freedom in China. So somehow or other we have to find a way to do that,” she told the Brookings Institution think tank.
Pelosi said she praised China's leadership in her meetings for lifting millions out of poverty, calling it a “remarkable” achievement.
“The problem I have is that — people say, 'Well, look at Taiwan, look at [South] Korea, different places' — economic reform leads to political reform,” she said.
“What I see in China is that economic reform is being used to suppress the political reform — 'You have a job, okay, I'm happy.' So it isn't the natural peaceful evolution, which they really never subscribed to,” she said.
Pelosi denied perceptions that she had softened her stance on her recent trip by not speaking out publicly in China on human rights.
She said she was able to raise human rights concerns at the highest level as House speaker, the third-highest leader under the US Constitution.
She said she directly petitioned Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to free jailed rights activists.
Pelosi said she had no regrets about infuriating Beijing's leaders in 1991 by unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square in tribute “to those who died for democracy in China.”
“It isn't that my view has changed so much as my role has changed,” Pelosi said. “This is a relentless pursuit of mine.”
“If we do not speak out for human rights in China and Tibet, we lose moral authority to speak out for them anywhere,” she said.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton disappointed many human rights activists in February by saying that rights concerns would not impede US cooperation with China on issues such as the global economic crisis.
But Clinton made a public appeal to China this week to come clean on how many died in Tiananmen Square and to free prisoners — a plea quickly rejected and denounced by Beijing.
Pelosi on Thursday invited Tiananmen Square leaders, including Wang Dan (王丹) — the former floppy-haired student who had topped Beijing's most-wanted list — to join her at the US Capitol to commemorate the uprising.
She said that despite her record — she joked she was the “most hated person” in China last year for her strong support to Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama — Chinese leaders were “incredible” in their hospitality.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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