Q: Do you have personal feelings about human rights violations in China?

A: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I’m going to put it in context: They are the same ones that I have about human rights violations in the United States.

Q: Wait a second. Americans do live in a democracy. We get to vote for our political leaders, and we aren’t shot down in the streets, as the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square were.

A: Well, not in the same way…

— Philip Condit, former CEO of Boeing Co., in an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1997

In 1953,the head of General Motors Corporation, Charles “Engine Charlie” Wilson, went before the Senate to be confirmed as secretary of defense.”For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa,” he said.”The difference did not exist.”

We thought of that as Philip Condit resigned his post Monday over Boeing’s relationship with the Pentagon. For years, he has argued that what is good for Boeing is good for America, even if it means being incredibly obtuse regarding the human rights abuses of Communist China.

Since the 1990s, Mr. Condit has served as a mouthpiece for the Red Chinese government, fighting tooth and nail for the preservation of China’s Most Favored Nation trade status. Undoubtedly, the trade has been good to Boeing. What’s less clear is whether trade with China has achieved any of the American strategic goals the proponents of normal relations have promised. A recent memorandum from the Project for the New American Century recounted how Beijing was able to derail a visit by Free China’s vice president to Boeing’s plant in Seattle by exerting pressure on Boeing’s management. It kowtowed to communist bullying of Taiwan. Such behavior suggests America, and Boeing, will be better off with Mr. Condit no longer at the helm.