Chapter 15: Carter – U.S.-China Diplomatic Relations, “One China, Respective Interpretations” 1979 (Part II)

Since Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) internally engaged in intense reflection on the catastrophic consequences of Mao’s thirty years of rule, during which tens of millions perished. In September 1980, the CCP convened in Beijing a discussion conference on the draft of the “Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of the Party Since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China.” About 4,000 senior officials attended, along with more than 1,000 high-ranking cadres studying at the Central Party School.

At the conference, participants poured out long-suppressed grievances, repudiated the Cultural Revolution, and reflected upon and denounced the enormous national disasters caused by Mao’s three decades in power. Many demanded a complete negation of Mao Zedong and the abandonment of Maoism. A group of veteran party elders and senior officials—including Ye Jianying, Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, Lu Dingyi, Luo Ruiqing, Hu Yaobang, and Zhou Yang—supported this stance. Outside the conference, the mass movement centered on the Xidan Democracy Wall in Beijing provided powerful popular backing, creating great momentum.

However, Deng Xiaoping failed to make a decisive break. Supported by conservative elders such as Chen Yun and Li Xiannian, and with Hu Qiaomu drafting the text on his behalf, Deng delivered a lengthy “emergency braking” speech advocating the “Four Cardinal Principles.” This speech crushed the strong demands voiced by thousands and effectively suppressed the wave calling for a full repudiation of Mao Zedong. From that point on, the movement to reject Mao—the source of disaster—was forced into retreat.

By 1979, it was the third year after Mao’s death. Similarly, after Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his secret report in 1956, publicly criticizing Stalin and exposing his crimes. Mao’s crimes were even greater than Stalin’s, yet Deng Xiaoping lacked Khrushchev’s courage. He continued to kneel before Mao’s legacy, leaving the CCP burdened with Mao’s immense historical baggage and unable to achieve genuine liberation. President Carter failed to see that Deng’s “Four Cardinal Principles” were in essence a reaffirmation of communist totalitarianism. As a result, the Chinese people missed a historic opportunity to abandon communism and achieve national rebirth.

Nixon’s 1972 visit to China marked the “ice-breaking” of U.S.–China relations; Carter became the leader who brought those relations to fruition. After assuming the presidency, Carter facilitated the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China on New Year’s Day, 1979. On January 28, 1979—Chinese Lunar New Year—Deng Xiaoping (1904–1994; in power 1978–1997) departed for a visit to the United States, where Carter accorded him an exceptionally high-level reception. U.S.–China relations entered a phase of friendly and normalized development. On the morning of January 29, 1979, for the first time, the five-star red flag of the PRC and the Stars and Stripes were raised side by side on the White House South Lawn. President Carter held a welcoming ceremony for Deng Xiaoping. The two countries ended nearly thirty years of hostility and isolation, achieving normalization of relations.

In 1979, Carter unconditionally established diplomatic relations with the CCP. Had Carter recognized that Maoist communism was the root cause of China’s thirty years of catastrophe, he might have demanded that Deng Xiaoping abandon communism and repudiate Mao before formalizing relations—thereby offering vital support to democratic forces within the CCP. In fact, during the CCP’s so-called “theoretical discussion conference” of 1979, there were strong democratic voices calling for the rejection of Mao, but they received no support from the United States. Deng Xiaoping suppressed these forces with the “Four Cardinal Principles.” Otherwise, with U.S. support, the CCP might have undergone transformation earlier than the Soviet Union.

At the time, the United States focused solely on the Soviet Union as the enemy, failing to regard the CCP—arguably more ruthless—as a major threat. Instead, it pursued a strategy of “uniting with China to counter the Soviet Union,” a grave strategic error. This not only revived an evil regime that should have collapsed but also enabled it, with U.S. support, to grow stronger and eventually expand outward under Xi Jinping, aspiring to challenge and replace the United States as the world’s dominant power.

The relaxation of restrictions on religious belief in China began with the normalization of U.S.–China relations under Carter. Former President Carter stated:

“At my personal request, Deng Xiaoping passed laws allowing full equality of religious worship. Before that, there were no Bibles. Now, the largest Bible printer in the world is a Chinese company; they print Bibles and distribute them freely in China. I also asked him to allow missionaries to return to China as they had before relations broke down, but he refused. He did not want missionaries entering China to do what he claimed they once did—changing Chinese culture from a position of superiority. So he rejected missionaries, but he approved my other two requests: freedom to distribute Bibles and freedom of religion.”

Today, the two promises Deng made to Carter have faded into history. Mailing Bibles into China from overseas can result in legal punishment, and house churches are comprehensively suppressed.

President Carter was a kind-hearted man, almost like Santa Claus. After leaving office, he visited China many times and remained extremely friendly toward it. He was never seen criticizing communism or condemning communist tyranny’s disregard for human rights. In 1982, he founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, focusing on promoting human rights and alleviating human suffering.

Beginning in 1989, the Carter Center sent election observation missions to 81 elections in 33 countries, with each mission consisting of 30 to 100 trained, neutral observers. As election observers, they analyzed electoral laws, verified voter education and registration, and assessed the fairness of campaigns. Carter believed that the CCP would gradually implement bottom-up democratic elections and actively promoted grassroots elections in China. Observations of township elections in China began in 1988 but eventually ended without result.

The CCP allowed Carter to pursue this effort as a form of deception—misleading the world and seeking undeserved prestige—because the CCP had no intention of conducting genuine democratic elections. The essence of totalitarianism is unchecked power. Democratic elections would unite an otherwise atomized population and create opportunities for opposition forces to emerge. Given the CCP’s behavior since taking power, the result of true democratic elections would be the CCP’s loss of power and exit from history—something it would never accept. Once power is in hand, why allow the people to freely choose? Electing democrats would mean losing power, and for a party that treats power as life itself, losing power means losing everything. Carter was naïve to believe the Communist Party would voluntarily relinquish power without pressure—an exercise as futile as climbing a tree to catch fish.

Zhong Wen concludes: Carter was a gentleman and a kind man—a “nice guy.” Such people do well among other nice people. But when dealing with a totalitarian regime like the CCP, good intentions often produce bad outcomes. Although U.S.–China normalization may have seemed like going with the flow, once the CCP—long constrained for over two decades—was untied and allowed into the channels of civilization, it inevitably charged ahead recklessly, even attempting to reshape those channels. In America’s struggle with communism, Carter ignored Deng Xiaoping’s “Four Cardinal Principles,” indulging a model of economic reform without political reform, leaving communist dictatorship intact. In the fight against communism, Carter was a well-meaning man but ineffective. He fails this test and deserves a score of 55 out of 100.