My Take | China has changed so much in 31 years, Pelosi’s view not one iota
- From her 1991 protest stunt in Tiananmen Square to her latest trip to Taiwan, the US House speaker has maintained the same moralistic stance
- Either she has been right about China from day one or it’s self-serving, wilful blindness that is highly useful in politics
By any measure, 31 years is a long time. In politics, that’s longer than eternity. If your view of something or someone hasn’t changed for so long, either you are infallible or you are just wilfully blind.
In business, you would have lost so much money you would have been out of a job a long time ago.
In politics, though, if you had latched onto the right target, you might be admired for being “principled” and even “courageous” - well, at least in America.
And that’s Nancy Pelosi, the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives. Those 31 years have seen her eternally unchanging view of China.
During that time, China has of course changed in the most awesome and unprecedented way in the annals of human history.
But to Pelosi, China has stayed the same, at its core, in all the most crucial fundamentals. You have to ask, though: if she is right, why bother? China clearly can’t change.