China Thumbs Back at Pelosi
Last week, during a visit to India, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) had some choice words (transcript) for China’s leaders in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown on protesters in Tibet. Two days later, Beijing returned the favor, accusing the powerful lawmaker of wrongly condemning “China’s legitimate actions against violence” while turning “a blind eye to merciless rioters.”
“„The U.S. Speaker became a muckraker of her own hypocrisy when, out of the so-called concerns about human rights in Tibet, she pompously condemned China in Dharamsala, while enjoying the hospitality of the orchestrators of the Lhasa riots.
A front page New York Times piece published today indicates that the marches did indeed turn violent, and that some of the Tibetan protesters probably do bear some of the blame. Still, someone needs to tell Beijing that if it wants to convince the world of its story, it might have allowed the news media to record the progression of events, rather than blacking out the largest media outlets through the thick of the conflict.
But don’t hold your breath for policy changes: Instead, China’s leaders just announced a ban on all live broadcasts of Tiananmen Square throughout the Olympic Games. Seems that “muckraker of her own hypocrisy” could apply to any number of folks in this tale.
