His probable successors all think so. Hillary Clinton has called on the president to do so. Both Barrack Obama and John McCain agree that, unless China stops beating up on Tibetan dissidents, the president should stay home.

I tend to think they 're all wrong.

The symbolism involved in a presidential boycott might be comforting to those of us who are self-righteous. But the fact of international life is that our country has made peace with China 's rulers and with China 's policies.

I doubt that my position will be particularly popular around here.

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is a familiar presence here in Madison.

He first visited in 1979, returned in 1981, when he performed the first Kalacakra Initiation Ceremony ever to take place in the Western Hemisphere. He returned again in 2001 to meet with UW-Madison Professor Richard Davidson about the benefits of meditation and, then, came back last summer to raise money for Buddhist charities. He 's planning to return July 19-24 to dedicate the $6.1 million temple at Deer Park, near Oregon.

Deer Park is a major Buddhist center, established in 1975 by Geshe Lhundub Sopa, at the request of the Dalai Lama to introduce Tibetan Buddhism to the United States.

So the Dalai Lama has many friends here, and I doubt there 's a community in the country that has a higher regard tor the Tibetan people and their quest to regain the independence taken from them when China invaded their country in 1959.

Nevertheless, it seems to me our president is in no position to take a symbolic stand on China and Tibet and, I fear, to do so would be to open our country to ridicule.

Why? For one thing, our hands are no longer clean when it comes to invading sovereign lands. There 's the little matter of Iraq, a country which has never attacked us but which we attacked. We may make a distinction between what we did in 2003 and what China did in 1959. My guess is that China won 't see the distinction quite so clearly.

The other reason is that we have been bought and paid for.

Every year, our country spends more than it takes in. It finances the difference by selling U.S. Treasury Notes. China holds about $350 billion of those notes. As Rep. Ron Paul says, "like all debtors, we are not truly free. China and other foreign government creditors could in essence wage economic war against us simply by dumping their holdings of U.S. dollars, driving the value of those dollars sharply downward and severely damaging our economy. "

We rely on China to buy our debt. We rely on China to provide cheap goods for our stores. We rely on China for our standard of living. Who are we kidding when we say we will stand in judgment over China 's policies toward Tibet?

Contact Wineke at bwineke@madison.com or at 252-6146. Read Wineke 's blog at www.madison.com/wsj/.