Since 1987, Nancy Pelosi has represented California's Eighth District in the House of Representatives. The Eighth District includes most of the City of San Francisco including Chinatown, and many of the diverse neighborhoods. Nancy Pelosi was overwhelmingly elected by her colleagues in the fall of 2002 as Democratic Leader of the House of Representatives. She is the first woman in American history to lead a major party in the U.S. Congress. Before being elected Leader, she served as House Democratic Whip for one year and was responsible for the party's legislative strategy in the House. She has been a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for 10 years, the longest continuous period of service in the committee's history, including two years as the Ranking Democrat.

Pelosi is a leader with a distinguished record of accomplishment on both domestic and international issues. Pelosi has long been an advocate for human rights around the world. She has fought to improve China's human rights record, attempting to tie trade to increased human rights standards.

The following is her speech at the “Commemorating Ziyang, Farewell Chinese Communist Party” International Rally in Washington DC on January 29, 2005.

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Good afternoon. Thank you for your kind words of introduction. More importantly, thank you to all of you who organized this occasion for us to come and pay our respects to a great hero, a person who made a tremendous sacrifice for freedom in China.

I want to extend to all of you who are concerned about freedom in China and honor Zhao Ziyang, my profound sadness and admiration for him, for his family, and extend on behalf of my constituents in San Francisco, our deepest sympathy to his wife Liang Boqi and his five children.

Zhao has many admirers in my district in San Francisco and throughout the world and they will never forget his legacy of preserving freedom. The forward march of freedom has always been advanced by brave souls who defied the powers of their day to demand liberties to which all people are entitled.

As I look around here today, I see some friends from with whom I’ve been involved since 1989, even before, but most closely since 1989 since that sad day in June. Nearly 16 years ago Zhao risked it all when he went down to speak to the peaceful demonstrators in Tiananmen Square and warned them of what was coming. He was the head of the Communist party, he was perhaps going to succeed to be the paramount leader in China but by his actions to save lives and promote liberty he became a man very feared by the Chinese Communist party. And so they placed him under house arrest; they feared him in death, they feared him in life. And so in China, upon the occasion of his passing they have kept it a secret from the Chinese people, tried to black it out on the Internet and did not allow the people who did know about his passing to attend his funeral and were very careful not to elevate the funeral, the memorial service to the status of a great leader of China which indeed he was. But the more they tried to suppress his message and his courage, the stronger they make him.

As I look around and see the white flowers of mourning we are all wearing I am remembering a day in 1991 when some members of Congress and I went on a human rights trip to Beijing. And we were there to talk to the Chinese government about some very simple things, about letting dissidents who were outside of China return home without punishment. They were indicting everyone outside of China, especially some of the more high profile peaceful demonstrators. And we wanted them to be able to have the freedom to return home.

We wanted to talk to them about freeing the people who were arrested during the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. It was just simple, it wasn’t a big demand but of course we were rejected. And so we went to Tiananmen Square just practically as sightseers, and we went to the monument there and then we had these white flowers which we had worn as a sign of mourning when we came to China and we decided to put them there at the monument in Tiananmen Square. And when we did we did not realize what we would provoke. We thought it was an innocent private gesture. But these white flowers at that monument in Tiananmen Square provoked such a response, we learned that the people who were milling around in the square, tourists with cameras around their necks and all were actually security people for the Chinese government, and they immediately encircled us and then the soldiers came from the building right there next to the square and we started running.

But the simple gesture of a silk flower being placed at the monument was so frightening to the Chinese government. They were even afraid of a silk flower because it would say that we associated ourselves with the ideal of freedom.

Zhao is like the young man before the tank, a courageous individual making a statement for freedom, a courageous person and today we salute his courage. And maybe in death, his message will even be stronger than it was in life because they confined him so much but again and again people around the world no matter how much they wanted to suppress the word of his passing in China, people around the world will mourn his loss. And it was shocking 16 years ago when the army rolled down the tanks and crushed the peaceful pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. And he, again as we saw on TV, weeks before he dared to resist the Chinese government’s party decision and with tears in his eyes and a bullhorn in his hands, he apologized for having come too late.

His courage in opposing military forces resulted in his dismissal from the government, his name erased from the Chinese history books and fifteen years plus under house arrest. We remember the courage of the heroes of Tiananmen and we remember how millions of ordinary students, workers and citizens marched in peace. How they raised the goddess of democracy in the image of our own Statue of Liberty, how they quoted our founding fathers; they truly were the inheritors of the legacy of America’s freedom. And then of course we remember with sadness and outrage how the so called “People’s” Liberation Army was unleashed on its own defenseless people slaughtering maybe thousands and searing into our conscience forever one of the most enduring images of the twentieth century; Again the picture of the lone man standing before a long line of military tanks.

Today once again we call on Beijing to release the Tiananmen Square activists still in prison. We call on them to release them and all the prisoners of conscience whose only crime was to demand their basic human rights. Zhao Yang had been a principal architect of the economic changes that transformed China in the 1980’s and yet the Chinese government which boasts of those reforms will not credit him with being the architect of them. His passing is a reminder of how political reform though has not followed economic reform. They told us that would happen. But as we know the peaceful evolution was viewed as a negative in China and was suppressed. For a billion Chinese and Tibetans freedom remains a dream deferred. Journalists, activists, academics, workers and religious believers are still persecuted and tortured. Beijing is still harassing and arresting dissidents and families of Tiananmen victims. In fact they wouldn’t even let the mothers of Tiananmen, I know you heard from them earlier, attend the funeral in a way that would be appropriate.

Troops may crush a protest but they can never extinguish the flame of freedom that burns in every heart here and in China. And so when our administration says that we are going to take freedom to the darkest corners of the earth, I hope that includes the largest country in the world as well.

And I am hopeful, I am hopeful about that. I was very pleased that the administration released a statement recognizing the contribution of Zhao Yang and calling him “a person of courage.” I commend the administration for doing that and hope it will go to the next step to include China among those countries where we will use our engagement, our good efforts with them to free prisoners and to allow people to speak freely without fear of arrest.

The Chinese government will not revisit the decision at Tiananmen Square, in fact they have tried to erase the history of Tiananmen and references to Zhao from state-run media, even on the Internet has been erased. But we will never forget those who have lost their lives or those who are in prison. They say that of those who have been in prison and prisoners of conscience that the worst torture exerted upon them is that their prison guards tell them that, “Nobody even remembers that you are here, or why you are here.” That can never be said of the prisoners of conscience in China because of you, because of all of you gathered here on this bitter cold day, because so many of you have worked who can’t be here in other cities paying tribute to Zhao; because we will never forget and those prisoners some how or other will get the word that their names are being pronounced in the halls of congress and at gatherings such as this around the world. We won’t forget their names, we won’t forget their courage. They can never be told that people forgot why they are there, because they are making such a tremendous difference with their sacrifice.

And so drawing strength from Zhao’s example and drawing from the highest level of government with the greatest risk he went to try to warn the young people and have their lives saved.

I understand that in New York when they had the service yesterday or the day before a poster, a sign was on the door as you went into the room and it said “Gao Feng Liang Jie (Nobility, Integrity and Decency),” and forgive my Chinese, which is I understand an indication that the person here being honored was a noble, principled and decent person. That certainly is the description of this remarkable man.

Just to close, I want to say that when we were in Beijing on a number of occasions and had opportunity there and here to meet with some of the senior leaders of the regime, I said to them at the time,” You know the students who are demonstrating and being so courageous for freedom in China are tomorrow. They are the future. You are yesterday. You are yesterday, they are tomorrow. While it may be inconceivable to you that they will prevail, that freedom will prevail. It is inevitable that it will happen. It’s just a matter of how long it will take.”

So I thank all of you who are out here in the freezing cold for the invitation to join you to express again the condolences of my constituents in San Francisco and so many of you who worked together over the years on these issues. The path to freedom is a long one. Sometimes it takes a great deal of persistence and patience. But again we will shorten the difference between what is inconceivable to the regime but what is inevitable to the young people of China. So with the deepest sympathy and condolences to Zhao’s family I sing his praises, express condolences and express appreciation to all of you for coming out again on a very cold day with very warm hearts about freedom in China. Thank you so much.