Too few people understand the meaning of critical thinking. Critical thinking is independent thinking, which requires one to shed one’s presuppositions and examine each speech, each article, each argument objectively and scientifically, ready to raise questions, ready to doubt, and ready to be convinced. Jimmy Carter was an independent thinker. As America’s president, “he was not afraid of criticizing the United States’ closest ally, in sharp contrast to US politicians today who have, wittingly or otherwise, endorsed the atrocities committed in the Gaza Strip during the past 14 months”. (China Daily article by Chen Weihua, Jan 4-5, 2025.)

I read an article published by the Hoover Institution in 2021 that warned readers against “Beijing’s Woke Propaganda War in America”, and another published in The Diplomat on “The Trouble with China’s Global Civilization Initiative” (GCI). The first article disingenuously referred to the “Tiananmen Massacre”, the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong, ignoring the fact that even Western media has testified that there was no “Tiananmen Massacre”, that the Dalai Lama said he would rather have Tibet stay within China and benefit from being part of China, so the central government could construct Tibet materially and Tibet could provide Chinese people Buddhist services, and that Falun Gong has now been discredited. The New York Times recently reported that Shen Yun, the dance troupe directly operated by Falun Gong, “has discouraged performers from seeking medical care when they were injured and has subjected them to emotional abuse and manipulation”. The second article alleged that the GCI was “fundamentally a self-serving effort to disarm the rules-based international order” while ignoring the fact that the US has abandoned the “rules-based international order” formed since the establishment of the United Nations.  

In March 2024 Politico reported that, “The 166 member countries (of the World Trade Organization) walked away from the five-day gathering in Abu Dhabi without any new commercially meaningful trade agreements. They also failed to resolve an impasse over how to mediate trade disputes, five years after the Trump administration effectively killed the existing dispute settlement system.” According to Simon Evenett, a professor of international trade and economic development at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland, “the United States has de facto retreated” from its traditional role as guardian of the rules-based international system over the past eight years.

Recently, the US was the only member of the Security Council that vetoed the resolution for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Let’s pray that President Jimmy Carter’s legacy will bear fruit, and that 2025 will be a more peaceful year in the world, and particularly in Gaza and in Ukraine

Politically driven self-interested propaganda, indeed, is always shrouded in grandiose terms. But the world at large can see the blatant violation of human rights and the daily slaughtering of the Palestinian people. President Jimmy Carter, as early as 2006, published the book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He was unburdened by dogmas or economic interests, and spent his whole life working for the cause of peace and bringing about a more civilized world.

Sophisticated propagandists take advantage of human weaknesses and particularly the malleability of human perceptions through the use of value-loaded words, particularly “totalitarianism” and “democracy”. People naturally fear totalitarianism and favor democracy. When China is “conflated” with totalitarianism and the US is “conflated” with democracy, even the principle of noninterference is objectionable because it is “China’s principle of noninterference”. People with judgment and critical thinking realize that the principle of noninterference is part of the “rules-based international order”, which does not and should never carry a country label. Is there an American “rules-based international order”? The rules-based international order is based on mutual respect, multilateralism, and nonexistence of exceptionalism. By the same token, the GCI belongs to neither China nor President Xi Jinping. It just so happens that Xi spelled it out in those terms. Albert Schweitzer, the Franco-German medical doctor, theologian and musicologist, the humanitarian Mother Teresa, and President Jimmy Carter, were all deserving recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize and their lives and activities represent the GCI in action. Because the Western mainstream media have done so much work smearing China, some ill-intentioned writers believe that connecting the GCI with China would be enough to discredit it for some unwitting readers.

Truly civilized people would criticize uncivilized acts and distinguish uncivilized acts from the country and its people. China will never forget the atrocities that Japan committed when it invaded and slaughtered Chinese people. But civilized Chinese people are happy to make friends with Japanese and treat Japan today as a great country that offers much for the rest of the world to learn from. We hate the war-crimes and the genocide in Gaza, but we do not hate Israel or Jews in general. By the same token, we hope that activists promoting the cause of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state and condemning Israel’s atrocities in Gaza will not be called anti-Semitic. There are many justice-minded Jews who want to live in peace alongside a peaceful Palestinian state.

Let’s pray that President Jimmy Carter’s legacy will bear fruit, and that 2025 will be a more peaceful year in the world, and particularly in Gaza and in Ukraine.

The author is an adjunct research professor at the Pan Sutong Shanghai-HK Economic Policy Research Institute and Economics Department, Lingnan University.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.