When Hu Jintao hooks up with his American counterpart George W. Bush next month for their presidential summit in the US, the two leaders will hardly lack things to talk about. With Congress yapping at his back, Mr Bush will (politely, we hope) raise the touchy trade-imbalance issue and Mr Hu will explain (politely, we hope) why it is best for the US to keep its hands off the touchy Taiwan issue.
There will be other talking points for both, though there are two outstanding items that will probably be conspicuous by their absence. One is the fallout from the recent mess involving the failed purchase of Unocal by China National Offshore Oil Corp. The Chinese are deeply embarrassed by how this has all turned out, and when publicly embarrassed, they tend to act as if nothing whatsoever happened.
The second issue involves the continuing refugee mess on the Chinese side of the North Korean border. This is another problem that the Chinese would prefer did not exist - but on this they need to be pressed.
Mr Hu knows well that not everyone in North Korea finds their life to be the utter worker's paradise boasted by Pyongyang. For years, China has absorbed a steady trickle of North Koreans wading or swimming across the Tumen River into the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in flight from their home country. There are an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 refugees there now.
Chinese authorities are anything but enthusiastic about border instability - but their fear of a mass exodus from North Korea borders on paranoiac obsession. And so, as declared policy, Beijing regards these refugees as mere economic migrants, instead of what they really are: political refugees entitled to the protection of the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
If caught, they are likely to be sent back to the workers' paradise, and severe punishment, jail - or death.
In a polite but firm way, Mr Bush needs to raise this issue. He should ask Mr Hu to end the policy of deporting North Korean refugees.