Change in the weather

China | On China trip, Nancy Pelosi shifts focus from human rights to the environment | Jamie Dean

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On a week-long trip to China in late May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a Beijing audience about a "game-changing" issue in U.S-China relations: global warming. It was a game-changing statement for Pelosi herself. For years, the Democratic representative has trumpeted a different issue when it comes to China: human rights.

On a 1991 trip to Beijing, Pelosi unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese military had killed thousands of student protesters and civilians in a massacre two years earlier. The banner proclaimed: "To those who died for democracy in China." Last summer, the speaker urged President George W. Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing.

But last month, the speaker adopted a softer tone in China, reflecting the Obama administration's evolving approach to foreign relations with severe nations. Her only mention of human rights came in the context of global warming: "Indeed, protecting the environment is a human-rights issue."