For the last several weeks, I have struggled with the real issue of whether nations and their leaders should boycott the Chinese Olympics over a wide range of issues from Darfur , Tibet, Burma, to internal human rights. All these crises involving great human suffering and sacrifice demand our attention. These are issues about which I feel passionately. Clearly we must make a powerful statement to the Chinese expressing our outrage over their policies.

At first blush, the Olympics offer a great opportunity to make such a statement. The Chinese government and its people have invested their national pride in this prestigious event. What better way to show them how we feel. However, as I have read more and dug deeper into the issue, it becomes much more complex

First - upon reflection, I have come to believe it is essential in this time of turmoil, war, famine and anger to have at least one place where the people of the nations of the world can meet in peace and friendship. Seeing all the nations march together into the arena in the opening ceremonies is still a powerful experience of coming together. Lord knows we have ample opportunity to express our outrage and concerns between Olympics.

Second - it is exactly because the Chinese have invested so much of their national pride in the Olympics that it would be huge mistake to boycott them. No one can argue that China hasn't become a major player on the international scene. Their 'resource diplomacy' has made their presence known in most of the Southern Hemisphere. America still has time to find common ground with the Chinese and avoid a new 'cold war' in the Far East. Our strategic interests far outweigh the minimum benefits garnered through a boycott. Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek wrote:

"In these circumstances, a boycott of the Olympics would have precisely the opposite effect that is intended. The regime in Beijing would become only more defensive and stubborn. The Chinese people would rally around the flag and see the West as trying to humiliate China in its first international moment of glory. (There are many suspicions that the United States cannot abide the prospect of a rising China.) For most Chinese, the Games are about the world's giving China respect, rather than bolstering the Communist Party's legitimacy.

For leaders to boycott the Games' opening ceremonies alone is an odd idea. Is the president of the United States supposed to travel to Beijing to attend the women's water-polo finals instead? (Britain's Gordon Brown, for instance, has said he'll attend the closing, but not the opening ceremonies.) Picking who will go to which event is trying to have it both ways, voting for the boycott before you vote against it. Some want to punish China for its association with the Sudanese government, which is perpetrating atrocities in Darfur. But to boycott Beijing's Games because it buys oil from Sudan carries the notion of responsibility too far. After all, the United States has much closer ties to Saudi Arabia, a medieval monarchy that has funded Islamic terror. Should the world boycott America for this relationship?"

He ended his commentary by saying:

In fact, in almost all cases—Turkey, India—granting autonomy to groups that press for it has in the end produced a more stable and peaceful national climate. But that is a lesson the Chinese government will have to learn for itself; it is unlikely to take instruction from outsiders. Its handling of the protests in Tibet is disgraceful. But humiliating the entire country over it would make matters worse.

In the end, because of the need for a peaceful gathering place and our future ability to affect the course of our relations with China, it is important that we show up in Beijing. Now is not the time for symbolic actions that yield little but fleeting self-satisfaction. Indeed, such an action could possibly do long term harm to the peace and security of the world