Throughout her career in the US Congress, Nancy Pelosi has been one of the most-strident and outspoken critics of China's alleged human rights violations.
Two years later, the young congresswoman joined a bipartisan visit to China and angered Beijing by showing up in Tiananmen Square and unfurling a banner honouring dissidents killed in the 1989 protests.Chinese police closed in quickly, pushed away reporters covering the event and forced Ms Pelosi to leave the square.
Over the years, she continued to speak out about the Tiananmen massacre, an event that is 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," Ms Pelosi said recently in a statement marking 33 years of the Tiananmen Square massacre.Ms Pelosi has called for rejection of China's bids to host the Olympics as far back as 1993, based on criticisms of China's human rights records.
She also called on Congress and former US president George W Bush to boycott China's 2008 Summer Olympics, despite being unsuccessful.criticising China's treatment of Uyghurs and other minorities.She said going to China "in light of a genocide" would raise questions to one's "moral authority" to speak about human rights in the world.
Beijing's Foreign Ministry spokesperson described Ms Pelosi's remarks as "full of lies and false information".
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