HARRISBURG -- Sen. Barack Obama said last night that the United States should apply "steady pressure" on China over its human rights record and on issues such as its conduct in Tibet, but he said he was not ready to consider a boycott of the Beijing Olympic games, a move urged by some China critics.

Discussing foreign policy issues in an interview with the Post-Gazette midway through his six-day bus tour of Pennsylvania, the Democratic presidential candidate said it was important to balance such concerns and pressures with the cultivation of a positive relationship with China over the long term.

A variety of activists have urged the use of the Olympics as a lever to put pressure on the emerging superpower. Some European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel have said that they will not attend the opening ceremony of the games in light of the controversy over Tibet.

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"I am not prepared to say at this point that we should be boycotting the Olympics," Mr. Obama said. "But I do think finding an appropriate way to register our concern in a very public way is important, and, if developments worsen over time, that's something we can always looks at."

In discussing a variety of world issues, Mr. Obama said the United States faces the challenge of balancing a hard-headed approach to the world with an effort to heal a reputation badly damaged by the Iraq war.

He suggested that a positive national image abroad was important not just for symbolic reasons but also as a foreign policy asset to buttress national security interests.

"I think it's important to be hard-headed and realistic about the real dangers of terrorism and nuclear proliferation. I think it's important not to be taken advantage of on the world stage when it comes to economic negotiations with the countries like China," the Illinois senator said. "I think we have to look out of U.S. interests first. But, we miss the boat if we think that the world is motivated only by material gain, responds only to force and power -- because, in fact, if you look at our history, part of the influence that we built post-World War II was based on a notion that we believed in the rule of law, we believed in certain universal principles.

"We didn't always abide by them, but that, you know, we were different.

"That has concrete benefits in terms of us being able to exert our influence around the world and it shapes how public opinion."

Mr. Obama said one administration that struck and profited by such a balance was that of the incumbent's father, former President George H.W. Bush in its pursuit of the Gulf War.

"Because they took the time to engage in the diplomacy, because they made the case, because they used moral persuasion as well as self interest, an effort that was completed in a relatively brief time with relatively few casualties cost us $20 billion -- $20 billion, that's what we spend in two months [in Iraq]."

Mr. Obama said that the Gulf War, whose authorization was opposed by several prominent Democratic senators at the time, was "absolutely the right decision to make."

On another subject, Mr. Obama dismissed the controversial and influential thesis of the scholar Samuel Huntingdon that the future of the world's fault lines would follow age-old tensions between the world's major cultural and religious groups. Mr. Huntingdon made that in his book, "Clash of Civilizations."

"I think the real clash is actually between modernity and fundamentalism," Mr. Obama said. "I grew up for three or four years ... in Indonesia which is 90 percent Muslim. But it was just as secular and just as, you know, accommodating to modern industrial society as anywhere in the developing world at the time.

"What has changed is you've got a certain segment if Islam that is not just fundamentalist but has become anti-modern and anti-Western. How much that comes to dominate Islam I think in part depends on us and how we respond to it. If we alienate the Muslim world through poor decisions' like the war in Iraq, then we can widen that chasm. If, on the other hand, we reach out, as I proposed, to the Muslim world and say, lets isolate [al-Qaida leader Osama] bin Laden, let's isolate those who would do violence, and let's then also find areas of common interest and common concern."