As President Bush leaves for his trip to the Olympic games in Communist China, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are urging him to take a hard line. Speaker Pelosi may have prostrated herself — and the Congress she leads — in front of President Assad and led the charge for retreat in Iraq throughout 2007, but last week she urged Mr. Bush to deliver a tough speech highlighting the rights deficit under the Chinese communist regime, particularly in light of recent crackdowns there. The House also passed, by a margin of 419 to 1, a resolution urging Mr. Bush to deliver such a speech, noting that it would be necessary to create “an atmosphere that honors the Olympic traditions of freedom and openness.”

Mr. Bush deserves credit for meeting with Harry Wu, Wei Jingsheng, and other Chinese human rights activists Tuesday at his residence. He has also met at least four times during his presidency with the Dalai Lama, including at the White House. Most of Mr. Bush’s diplomacy with the Chinese has been done in private, in part because he has made China a partner in his diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. Churchill may have been willing to ally with Stalin to attack Hitler in Hell, but even symbolic gestures that give dissidents in China hope, such as meeting with political prisoners, can provoke a reaction that would slow what diplomatic momentum there may be in pressuring the Islamic Republic and the Hermit Kingdom.

The next president will inherit Mr. Bush’s Chinese diplomacy, a fact Senator McCain recognized over the weekend when he told the Washington Post, in an interview, “You don’t want to go over there and insult the Chinese.” Said he: “It would not be good for our relations. I certainly don’t think the president would or should go over there and be confrontational. At the same time, I think the president can in a very diplomatic style make it clear what we stand for and believe in.”

If a President Obama or McCain would like to confront the Chinese more robustly on human rights, he might pay the short term price of a divided international community on North Korea and Iran. Our own view is that this isn’t that big a price. Iran will have to be dealt with in the end by either the Iranians themselves or the Israelis, and North Korea will have to be dealt with in the end by the Koreans or by an American policy emphasizing the free flow of refugees.

Last week, Mr. McCain risked infuriating the People’s Republic of China by meeting with the Dalai Lama. Mr. Obama, who was traveling in the Middle East and Europe, sent a letter to “his holiness,” expressing his regrets. In the letter, the presumptive Democratic nominee said, “I will continue to support you and the rights of Tibetans. People of all faiths can admire what you are doing and what you stand for, and I look forward to meeting you at another time.”

But as President Clinton can attest, campaign postures on human rights in China have a way of being overtaken by other priorities, like trade, once a candidate gets into office. Senator Clinton made a famous speech as first lady in Beijing at the United Nations World Conference on Women, but 13 years later, the issues have yet to be resolved. If the next president will have to think of relations with the Chinese communist government, it is not too much to consider, too, America’s relations with what may follow it.

As one of the dissidents with whom Mr. Bush met last week, Wei Jingsheng, wrote in his essay, “The Fifth Modernization”: “People should have democracy. When they ask for democracy, they are only demanding what is rightfully theirs.” It is an insight acknowledged by the founders in the Declaration of Independence, that certain rights are “self evident,” a conclusion that applies to people in Asia just as much as to those in America. It is also a reminder that in navigating the diplomatic choices on his trip to China today, one of the best guides for Mr. Bush will be to think about how his actions will be judged through the lens of time by the democratic nation that will eventually emerge on the Chinese mainland.