Genocide Games: How Pelosi Reined in Criticism of 2008 Beijing Olympics While Her Family Was Bagging Cash in China

Pelosi’s stance perhaps changed most rapidly during the debate over the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, an event human rights activists decried as a travesty given China’s extensive record of atrocities against its own people. Opponents of the Games argued at the time that granting China such a tremendous honor and showcase for the Communist Party would embolden it to commit even greater horrors.

A year later, China sent paramilitary troops to crush a peaceful protest by members of the Uyghur community of East Turkistan, killing dozens and setting in motion the events that would lead to dictator Xi Jinping currently presiding over concentration camps that, at their peak, were estimated to imprison as many as 3 million people.
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), right, stands with Reps. Christopher Cox (R-CA), center, and Tom Lantos (D-CA), left, at a press conference on March 21, 2001, announcing their opposition to China’s 2008 Olympic bid. 

Early in her career in Congress, Pelosi was one of the most vocal anti-Beijing voices in Washington, Schweizer writes. Pelosi so opposed the Communist Party that she protested against the Tiananmen Square massacre in Tiananmen Square.

“In 1991, as a junior member of Congress, Pelosi found herself in Tiananmen Square. She was part of a congressional delegation visiting Beijing barely two years after the horrific events had unfolded,” Schweizer writes. “Pelosi … covertly carried a banner into the middle of the square and unfurled it in front of a small crowd and the media. ‘To those who died for Democracy in China,’ it read.”