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US House Speaker Pelosi due in China
2009-05-24
BEIJING (AFP) - US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime critic of China's rule over Tibet and its rights record, was to arrive in Shanghai Sunday for a trip focused on energy and climate change. Pelosi was expected in the Chinese financial hub mid-afternoon, Susan Stevenson, a spokeswoman at the US embassy in Beijing, told AFP, but she was unaware of who the top US official was going to meet. Pelosi was also scheduled to attend a clean energy forum in Beijing Tuesday along with Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate's foreign relations committee. Kerry was in Xi'an, the capital of the northern province of Shaanxi, on Sunday where he was holding official meetings and visiting the Terracotta Army archaeological attraction, Stevenson said. He will travel to Tianjin, a large city near Beijing, on Monday to do some clean energy-related work before heading to China's capital, she added. Before her trip, Pelosi -- who is leading a delegation from a key energy and environment committee -- declined to say whether she would press Beijing on rights ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown. "The purpose of the trip is to follow up on meetings we've had here with the representatives of the Chinese government on the subject of climate change and energy and how that relates to our economy," the Democrat said. Pelosi has been a vocal critic of China's rule of Tibet, drawing the wrath of Beijing, which resents any foreign interference in its internal affairs, and she led US congressional condemnation of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. In March last year, when riots against Chinese rule erupted in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, and spread to nearby provinces, Pelosi urged "freedom-loving people" in the world to "speak out against China's oppression in Tibet". And in October 2008, she commended the European Parliament for its "bold decision" to award the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia. Pelosi, who will be meeting with her counterpart Wu Bangguo during her visit, is due to stay in China until May 31.
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