Human Rights In China: Defending Pelosi

Our editorial, "Ghosts," discussed the 20th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. We lamented a declining interest in human rights, and noted that while in China, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi preferred to talk about climate change.

Wei Jingshen is a hero of China's Democracy Wall Movement and spent many years in Communist prisons. His Courage to Act Alone records his struggles. After The Wall Street Journal criticized Pelosi for not pressing human rights in China, Wei wrote in defense of the speaker. We believe our readers should see his letter, which appears here:

"[The Journal's] editorial, 'Pelosi's Chinese Climate Change,' says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not making human rights a priority during her visit to China. This is not fair. According to the transcripts of her speeches and the statements Speaker Pelosi has made, she discussed human rights in every speech and in every press release, along with bringing up human rights issues with top Chinese leaders. She is one politician who never stopped supporting human rights in China.

"There has also been criticism that the major issue on her China trip was environmental protection, instead of human rights. This is really normal. As speaker of the House, she cannot care about only one issue. She needs to care about all the issues that her people care about, especially since she put the environment as her flag topic when she became the speaker. Among all the politicians in the West, she is the one who cares about human rights the most.

"Before her China visit, she tried to reach me to discuss this visit. We agreed that environmental protection and trade deficits are not just an issue for the economy of the U.S. and the world, but also related to the issue of Chinese human rights. The human rights issue is not an isolated academic issue; it is connected to all the issues in society. To apply pressure on the issues of environment and trade will be beneficial, instead of damaging the improvement of human rights. When we, the democratic advocates, care about the issues of environment and trade, it does not mean that we do not care about human rights."