As President Trump prepares to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the G-20 gathering in Argentina this weekend , tough American tariffs and a broader bilateral trade relationship are at the top the agenda.

But what about concerns that the Trump administration has expressed in the past over Beijing’s repression and mass internment of Uighurs and other Muslims? Some of Mr. Trump’s top lieutenants, like Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have called attention to the Uighurs’ plight, but given the president’s fixation on tariffs, he may well decide to hold his fire about the Uighurs to appease Mr. Xi in pursuit of a trade deal. So it’s no surprise that the White House is refusing to say whether the Uighurs will be on the agenda.

The dilemma Mr. Trump faces has some faint echoes from 1989, when President George H.W. Bush had to figure out how to recalibrate relations with China after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Of course, Mr. Trump lacks the experience or subtlety that Mr. Bush — a former director of the C.I.A. and envoy to China — brought to that fraught diplomatic moment.

Mr. Bush “wanted to safeguard the underlying geopolitical relationship,” his secretary of state, James Baker, wrote in October. Still, Mr. Baker added, “The United States could not be viewed as a cynical paper tiger on human rights.”