A MAN OF UNCOMMON DECENCY

America's loses its best ex-president just before the inauguration of its worst.

My personal memories of Jimmy Carter are very much tied to China, partly because that’s where I met him, introduced by my graduate school adviser, Mike Oksenberg. My political understanding of the soft-spoken president was also influenced by Oksenberg’s fascination with power politics, and all things Chinese, as I was Mike Oksenberg’s graduate teaching assistant at the University of Michigan after he left the White House National Security Council.

Jimmy Carter, who, as Professor Oksenberg liked to remind his students, was never called “Jimmy” in the White House, but rather “Mister President,” made a personal visit to China in 1987. Press reports from the time show him being warmly hugged by Deng Xiaoping.

The optics of the two men in deep embrace, while then very much in tune with the generally optimistic tenor of U.S.-China diplomacy, took on another hue after 1989 due to Deng’s use of force during the Tiananmen crackdown.