House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday welcomed Hong Kong pro-democracy activists to the U.S. Capitol, sending a message to Beijing that Congress supports the protesters in their months-long campaign for human rights. Pelosi thanked the activists for “challenging the conscience,” not only of the Chinese government, but the worldwide community with their mass protests over the territory’s autonomous status. “If we do not speak up because of commercial interests in support of human rights in China, we lose all moral authority to speak up for them any other place in the world,” Pelosi said.
