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US Congress slams China for abuses

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan parade of members of Congress in condemning China’s crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators on the floor of the House on Tuesday evening, in a cascade of anti-China rhetoric not seen in the capital since the 1990s.

With the Olympic torch expected to face strong opposition from human-rights activists when it is paraded through Pelosi’s San Francisco district today, the speaker — a long-time vocal critic of China’s human-rights violations — slammed Beijing for its denial of freedoms at home and support of tyrannical regimes overseas.

Fifteen House members spoke out against China for more than an hour as the chamber took up a resolution introduced by Pelosi criticizing the Tibet crackdown and calling on Beijing to enter into negotiations with the Dalai Lama.

While the resolution is expected to garner overwhelming support, a final vote was put off until next Wednesday, when a roll call vote will be taken.

Up until this week, Congress had been silent about the Tibet crackdown, but Pelosi took the unusual step of introducing the resolution herself after her recent trip to India, where she met the Dalai Lama and spoke out forcefully for China to end the killing and violence in Tibet.

The bill was put on the agenda only days after Taiwan’s representative to Washington, Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), sent a letter to Pelosi supporting her condemnation of the Tibet crackdown and contrasting China’s behavior to Taiwan’s free presidential election.

“Recent events in China stand in stark contrast with those taking place in Taiwan,” he wrote in a letter dated April 3.

“As China continues to persecute civic and religious leaders, Taiwan embraces human rights, the rule of law and freedom of religion and assembly,” he wrote.

The “debate” on the bill went beyond Tibet, as 15 representatives spoke out against a wide range of Chinese human-rights violations and support for repressive regimes in Sudan and elsewhere.

Pelosi recalled the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, when between 2,000 and 3,000 people were killed by Chinese police and troops. She said that demonstrators arrested during the incident remained in prison to this day.

She also urged US President George W. Bush to “hold back” in deciding whether to attend the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August until China decides to hold negotiations with the Dalai Lama.

Her call came as the White House indicated for the first time that Bush, who has planned to attend the ceremony, could be amenable to skipping the event.

“The president can always make a change” in his plans, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Representative Christopher Smith, another long-time China critic, gave graphic examples of Chinese torture of Tibetans arrested in the ongoing crackdown as well as during previous incidents, and stated that the International Olympics Committee had made a “great mistake” in awarding the Games to China.

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, described the Olympics as the “genocide Olympics,” in view of the Tibet crackdown and Beijing’s support for the Sudanese regime, which has used massive violence in the Darfur region.

Pelosi praised human-rights activists in San Francisco, who on Monday raised “free Tibet” banners on the Golden Gate Bridge, which is on the scheduled route of the Olympics torch. She said their action made her proud.

She also leveled indirect criticism at former US president Bill Clinton for his ardent advocacy during his presidency of favorable trade treatment for China.

Through his presidency, Congress had to annually renew China’s “most-favored nation” status, a ritual that gave the lawmakers a chance to lambaste China’s human rights and trade policies, usually for several hours each year.

When Clinton successfully obtained congressional approval for “permanent normal trade relations” with China — a designation that cleared the way for China’s (along with Taiwan’s) entry into the WTO in 2001 — the debates stopped.

Pelosi said on Tuesday that as a result of advocating favorable trade for China, “we have lost our way.”

She also criticized China for scheduling the Olympic torch to pass through Tibet.

“The world should not allow that to happen,” she said.
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