http://english.people.com.cn/200705/14/eng20070514_374438.htmlYong Tang: You have the same birthday with my country. It was really a beautiful coincidence.
Carter: Yeah! I was very excited and pleased when Nixon did go to China. But I was disappointed when they announced there was only one China and didn't say which one. As you know, the more conservative Americans, including particular Republicans, still looked upon Taiwan as the only China. So when I became President, I thought it was time to make a change. I saw the enormous need for better understanding, better communication, better friendship and cooperation with China. So I decided that would be one of my goals as President.
So beginning in early 1978, Deng Xiaoping and I had very secret negotiations. I didn't even use the State Department. All of the messages went from the White House directly to China. I thought that it was one of the most needed diplomatic goals in my country's life. And I think it was the right thing to do and one of the best things I ever did.
Yong Tang: As many researchers and biographers have suggested, your decision to establish diplomatic relationship with China was a very courageous one and hurt your relationship with the Congress. What do you think of the significance of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and America? In the long run, how has the decision affected China and the entire world?
Carter: Well, it was proven to be one of the best things that ever happened to my country, and I think it has had a beneficial effect on China as well. When I went over in 1981 to visit China as the guest of Deng Xiaoping, he wanted me to see the first phases of economic freedom moving toward a free enterprise. And I think that may not have happened if we didn't have normal relations. Also his establishment of the right of little villages to have local elections was another possible result of the normalization. So I think that, in many ways, it has stabilized the political and military situation in the East, in Asia and also in several other countries.
Yong Tang: I know you are a close friend of Mr. Deng Xiaoping. After the normalization announcement in December 1978, Deng Xiaoping was invited by you to visit the United States. You met him many times since his 1979 visit. 2007 is the 10th anniversary of his death. Can you tell me your impression of Mr. Deng, his visit to the White House and your later meetings with him in China?
Carter: He was a strong man. He was a great and wise man. He was courageous. And he was very honest and frank.
Yong Tang: Also a very heavy smoker?
Carter: He was that. That's one thing that I didn't like. (Laughs) But when he told me something, I believed it to be true, and it was. He never wavered in his commitment to achieve the normalization of relations, but also to accommodate some of the special political obstacles that I had to overcome dealing with Taiwan.
Yong Tang: I know that you have visited China many many times. During those visits, you visited many places in China, met many Chinese leaders and talked to ordinary Chinese people. What changes in China have impressed you most?
Carter: Well, the most remarkable changes in China have all been related to economic change. I saw the original birth of free enterprise when Deng Xiaoping would only permit small farmers to have one tiny project: buy chickens or repair bicycles or make clay pots; they couldn't have two, only one. And later he expanded that to villages, and then he expanded on up. So that has been the primary change that I have seen and that has been impressive to me. It has been profoundly noticeable to the whole world.
I would say that in the field of freedom, religious freedom, there has been great progress made. I had an argument with him. I requested that he permit freedom of religion and that he permit Bibles to come back into China. I'm a Christian, and he agreed to do both of those things and did them. So in 1982 the Chinese National People's Congress approved the guarantee of freedom of religion. There are still some restraints on religion but progress has been made. And when I first visited China after I left the White House, it was impossible for a person in China to move from one place to another, except if the government ordered him to. Now there is more freedom of movement, more freedom of religion, and more economic freedom.
