Taipei, Taiwan —
The passing of former United States President Jimmy Carter was met with mixed reactions in China and Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping praised him for helping to establish diplomatic ties between Beijing and Washington while some in Taiwan remain critical of his decision to sever official ties with the island to this day.
In a message to U.S. President Joe Biden, Xi expressed his “deep condolences” and described Carter as “the driving force behind the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States.”
Former President Carter “made important contributions to the development of China-U.S. relations and the friendly exchanges and cooperation between the two countries,” China’s state-run broadcaster CCTV cited Xi as saying.
“China-U.S. ties are among the most import bilateral relationships in the world,” Xi said, adding that Beijing is willing to work with Washington to advance bilateral relations.
During Carter’s time in office between 1977 and 1981, the U.S. established formal diplomatic relations with China, advancing the groundwork laid by former U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s.
In 1979, his administration recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legal government of China and acknowledged Beijing’s position that Taiwan is a part of China. He also agreed to sever official ties with Taiwan, charting a new course in what would later become one of the world’s most complicated and consequential relationships.
Much like Xi, many Chinese commentators and internet users praised Carter’s contribution to normalizing U.S.-China relations.
Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of China’s state-run tabloid Global Times, said Carter helped to lay the foundation of the “friendly and cooperative relationship” between China and the U.S. by acknowledging China’s position on Taiwan.
While “his starting point is to safeguard the interests of the United States, during his term, China and the United States of America’s common interests have been highlighted and highlighted,” he wrote in a statement on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
Other Chinese internet users also characterized Carter as being more friendly to China than other U.S. leaders. “Of all the living former U.S. presidents, he is one of the friendlier to China,” Chinese netizen “Sheng Yuan Ran Dong” from Heilongjiang province wrote on Weibo.
“He was a good pacifist. He opened the floodgates of history by establishing diplomatic relations between China and the U.S. His good qualities are truly worth highlighting,” Chinese internet user “Abu from the magic forest” from Jiangxi Province wrote on Weibo.
Lu Chao, the director of Liaoning University’s Institute of American and East Asian Studies, said Carter not only facilitated the establishment of U.S.-China relations, he also maintained very good relations with then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.
“Former President Carter made the right choice that was in line with the trend of global development, the fundamental interests of the United States, and the interests of China. It is still praised by Chinese and American people,” he told VOA.
Mixed reactions in Taiwan
While reactions from China to Carter’s passing were largely positive, perceptions about the former U.S. president’s complicated legacy in Taiwan were mixed. In a short post on social media platform X, Taiwan’s Presidential Office extended “sincere condolences” to Carter’s family and the American people.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s main opposition party Kuomintang (KMT), said on X that while Carter will be remembered in Taiwan “for his decision to derecognize the Republic of China” — Taiwan’s official name — they “admire his advocacy worldwide for affordable housing, conflict resolution, refugees, and other causes.”
In contrast to the moderate official response, some Taiwanese internet users criticized the former U.S. president for allowing China to become a major threat to Taiwan.
While “the U.S. is now Taiwan’s strong ally, [Carter and Kissinger] are the ones who made China so difficult to deal with. From the two of them to the Obama era, Washington’s pro-China approach allowed China to build economic growth for decades and that’s the reason why the Chinese Communist Party can keep bullying Taiwan,” Taiwanese internet user Pbtato Hsieh wrote in a Facebook post.
After the Carter administration severed ties with Taiwan in 1979, the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), later the same year, which allows Washington to maintain close unofficial ties with Taipei while requiring the U.S. to “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” to “a sufficient self-defense capacity.”
The TRA also reaffirmed the United States commitment to preserving the human rights of the people of Taiwan. At the time the legislation was signed into law by then President Carter, Taiwan was under martial law and under the control of one single party, the KMT, which was led by Chiang Ching-kuo. Taiwan continued under martial law until 1989 and held its first direct presidential elections in 1996.
While Carter signed the TRA into law, some Taiwanese analysts say the former president shouldn’t be credited for providing the architecture that upholds the unofficial relations between Taiwan and the U.S. today.
“It was because the government in Taiwan under Chiang Kai-shek and some grassroots Taiwanese American organizations maintained good relations with members of the U.S. Congress, so the Congress passed a piece of legislation that was more favorable toward Taiwan,” Chen Fang-yu, a political scientist at Soochow University in Taiwan, told VOA by phone.
“The Taiwan Relations Act was not directly related to Carter,” he added.
Despite his complicated legacy of handling Washington’s relations with Taiwan, other experts say Carter’s decision to sign the TRA into law still helped to build the “first blocks of today’s U.S.-Taiwan relationship.”
“The de facto relationship that the U.S. and Taiwan have today began with him,” said Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Taiwan University.
“I don’t think he was the one who sat down and wrote the TRA, but he most certainly is the one who saw through the process of creating this new relationship with Taiwan after the recognition switch,” he told VOA by phone.
VOA Mandarin’s Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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