Jimmy Carter, Donald Trump, and China

Michael Chugani January 02, 2025 21:53

There are unpopular presidents, popular presidents, and great presidents. Jimmy Carter, who died last Sunday December 29 at the age of 100, was an unpopular one-term American president. A small-town peanut farmer, he won election in 1976 as a dark horse candidate but was soundly defeated by the immensely popular Ronald Reagan in 1980 while seeking a second term.

Many factors contributed to Carter’s humiliating reelection defeat, including the seizure of the US Embassy in Iran where armed students held 52 Americans hostage, inflation, high unemployment, an oil shortage, and the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. Some of these events were beyond Carter’s control but disillusioned voters turned against him.

After his defeat, he spent decades traveling the world promoting human rights, civil rights, and democracy. He fought global poverty and did charity work. The internet has numerous pictures of him and his wife Rosalynn, who died in November 2023, wearing helmets and holding hammers to build thousands of homes in 14 countries for the poor. He won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work and his Middle East peacemaking. He became widely respected as America’s greatest ex-president.

I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia in September 2018 to interview him for my TVB show. The interview was to mark the 40th anniversary of US-China diplomatic ties, which began in January 1979. He was 94 when I interviewed him. It was one of his last TV interviews. I felt his warmth the minute he entered the large and ornate room at the Carter Center with his signature wide smile. He was a former US president. I was just a Hong Kong journalist. But he insisted on walking to me to shake hands instead of me walking up to him.

My interview with him focused on many issues, from US-China relations and the rivalry between the two countries to how much he disliked Donald Trump, who was president at the time. The world remembers Richard Nixon as the US President who traveled to China in February 1972, where he met Chairman Mao Zedong, to begin ties with Beijing. It was dubbed the week that changed the world.

But it was Carter who established formal diplomatic relations with China in January 1979, breaking diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Carter said during my interview with him that it was one of the most significant things he ever did as president. Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping traveled to America later that month to meet with Carter at the White House, becoming the first Chinese communist leader to visit the US.

Beijing has praised Carter as an old friend for establishing formal relations, but many Taiwanese still feel he abandoned them by ending diplomatic relations. He faced hostile questions during a 1999 Taiwan visit but declined to apologize, expressing regret instead and making clear the US will continue to provide Taiwan with security guarantees, which the US Congress formalized with the Taiwan Relations Act.

He was genuine, but perhaps naïve, when he predicted to me that US-China ties would warm after Trump. He criticized Trump’s trade war with China as a lose-lose for both sides. He foresaw a future with the US and China as partners instead of adversaries after Trump. But the world has changed since my 2018 interview with him.

Outgoing President Joe Biden is less hostile to China than Trump but has kept Trump’s trade tariffs. He sees Beijing as an adversary and has banned US high-tech exports to China. The US Congress is united in confronting China. It is also very pro-Taiwan. And Trump will be president again on January 20. He has threatened tariffs of up to 60 percent on Chinese imports.

Carter told me he expected China to replace the US as the world’s top economy, but he could not see China replacing the US as the top military superpower anytime soon. Six years have since passed. The US economy is thriving after Covid, but China’s economy is still recovering. China has made great military strides, but Carter was right in his belief that the US will remain the top superpower.

Carter spoke fondly of Hong Kong, telling me he was proud of winning the Positive Energy Prize, part of the Lui Che Woo Prize founded by the late tycoon. Carter used the HK$20 million prize to fight disease and poverty in underdeveloped countries.

Carter was the polar opposite of other former presidents, especially Trump. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama made millions of dollars giving speeches and accepting corporate board memberships. Trump sold high-end sneakers and pricy Bibles to add to his billions. Carter declined all lucrative offers, saying he never aspired to be rich.

It is anyone’s guess how the unpredictable Trump will deal with China and US allies when he takes over as president again. He has threatened to take back the Panama Canal, which Carter handed to Panama. He has mocked Canada and wants to take over Greenland. He has nominated many China hawks to his cabinet but is known for making impulsive decisions on his own.

Many Americans who came to respect Carter now believe he was a misunderstood president whose vision was to promote world peace, improve the lives of people, and co-exist with other countries, especially China. Trump is the opposite of Carter. It is hard to see the Carter era of friendship with China returning. It is also hard to see a future American president with the moral principles and humanity of Carter.

Michael Chugani

A Hong Kong-born American citizen who has worked for many years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the USA and London.