Good to go

President Bush is catching quite a few javelins for his decision to attend the Olympic Games this summer in Beijing, with one Republican congressman saying his presence would be akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt attending Adolf Hitler’s Berlin Olympics in 1936. Setting aside that we’re all thoroughly sick of rhetorical references to Hitler, Bush is, for a change, on solid diplomatic ground.

The comments came from Rep. Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, who co-chairs a congressional caucus on Sudan and is mad at China because its economic and political ties to Khartoum are allowing the regime to flout international efforts to halt mass killings in Darfur. Congress has little power to stop the president from going to the Olympics if he chooses, but Wolf is doing the next best thing by introducing legislation that would prohibit diplomatic and other government personnel from spending federal money to attend.

It hardly bears pointing out, but we will anyway: China is not Nazi Germany. Its conduct on domestic human rights is abysmal and its backing of rogue regimes is reprehensible, but it is hardly a threat to world stability and it isn’t committing genocide on its own people. Director Steven Spielberg’s decision to withdraw as artistic director of the Beijing Games because of China’s stance on Darfur was a highly principled one, and other Americans considering a trip to see the show in August should consult their consciences. But the president is different.

When the U.S. welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, it was part of a profound shift in strategy that started with President Nixon in 1972. By then, it was clear that isolating and ostracizing China didn’t work, and that the best way to open its society, free its markets (as well as its people) and set it on the path to democracy was through closer economic and diplomatic ties. There is every sign that this approach is working, albeit slowly. And that’s why Bush should go to the Games.

Bush justified his decision to attend by saying it would give him a chance to discuss human rights with Chinese President Hu Jintao. We’re glad he has come around to this way of thinking, even if he’s a bit late in recognizing the importance of engagement with regimes he doesn’t like. Now that he sees the value of diplomacy, we have a modest proposal: Perhaps he could swing by North Korea, Iran and Cuba on his way home from Beijing.