Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives at a seminar held in Beijing on Monday to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USA and China. [Photo China.org.cn]

Former US President Jimmy Carter hailed the relationship between the USA and China at a seminar held in Beijing on Monday to commemorate the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries almost exactly thirty years ago on January 1st 1979.

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President Carter, who made the historic agreement to establish diplomatic relations with then Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, told the meeting "I think I can say without fear of contradiction that there is no more important diplomatic relationship on the world than the one that has grown between the People's Republic of China and the United States."

Recalling the talks that led up to the establishment of diplomatic ties, President Carter said that before his inauguration he had made up his mind to negotiate with the Chinese leaders and "found an eager and willing partner in Deng Xiaoping."

He described how during secret negotiations between US and Chinese diplomats though 1978, he worried that an agreement might be blocked by political opposition in America. "We realized we were facing enormous political challenges in the United States, because at that time the so-called Taiwan lobby was as powerful and important as the Israeli lobby. We knew that we would have a firestorm on our hands as soon as this announcement was made."

The two sides kept the talks secret until a simultaneous announcement by Carter and Deng on December 15, 1978. "Three days later on December 18th Deng Xiaoping announced his enormous plan to make changes in China itself. These two events, I think it's obvious now, were closely interrelated but no-one could have anticipated the enormous changes that have taken place since then."

Former United States National Security Advisor Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski addresses a seminar held in Beijing on Monday to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USA and China. [Photo China.org.cn]

President Carter's former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who traveled to China in the summer of 1978 to initiate the secret talks on normalizing relations said "Our world is now truly different, better and safer because of the normalization."

Dr Brzezinski said one of the motives for the establishment of diplomatic relations was that, at the time, "both America and China felt threatened by Soviet strategic assertiveness.' President Carter had instructed Dr Brzezinski to convey American determination to move forward with the normalization of relations and he recalled how he repeated several times to Deng Xiaoping "America has made up its mind."

Dr Brzezinski ended his speech with a call for regular American-Chinese summits on global issues, to bring together "the two countries with the most extraordinary potential for shaping our collective future."