Tidbits from Conversation at Carter Center on Sep. 11, 2012

President Carter has met Xi Jinping 3 times, and will meet the future leaders of China next month. He has enjoyed high respect from the Chinese government since he normalized the Sino-US relationship in 1978.

Following the meeting with Chinese leaders next month, President Carter will share his views at the next Conversation at Carter Center - What’s Next for China? Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012, 7 – 8:30 p.m. (EST)

The Chinese government recently asked President Carter for advice on improving their relationships with African countries.

The Carter Center has been pushing the Chinese government on the freedom of government information access with some success.

The Chinese government recently asked the Carter Center to restrain their contents on their two websites for China (http://www.chinatransparency.org/,  http://www.chinaelections.org/) to avoid blocking.

Guinea worm is poised to become the second human disease to be eradicated after 26 years of unrelenting effort pioneered by the Carter Center which visited every one of the 23,600 villages in 20 countries in Asia and Africa.

In President Carter’s opinion, a world superpower should be a champion of peace, environmental protection, human rights and helping the poor.

There is a major financial corruption in the current US elections.  This year, $6 billion will be spent on the presidential and congressional elections.  President Carter raised $0 for his election in 1976, and never ran a negative ad against his opponent President Ford.  The US is one of the very few countries in the world that do not use public financing for the presidential election.