At Work Around the World

China

In a groundbreaking agreement, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China in 1997 granted The Carter Center permission to observe village elections that govern everyday life for more than 1 billion citizens.


Building Hope

The Carter Center was honored to receive an invitation to assist with the observation and development of village elections in China in 1997. Through the China Village Elections Project, The Carter Center has helped the Chinese people strengthen democratic practices.


Waging Peace

Monitoring Elections

The Chinese government began direct village elections in 1988 to help maintain social and political order in the context of unprecedented economic reforms. Today, village elections occur in some 700,000 villages across China, reaching 75 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people.

In a groundbreaking agreement, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China granted The Carter Center permission in 1997 to observe village election procedures; provide assistance in gathering election data, educating voters, and training election officials; and host Chinese officials to observe U.S. elections. After the Center's completion in 1999 of a successful pilot project, The Carter Center and the ministry signed a three-year cooperation agreement.

Upon invitation, the Center also began observations of township elections -- elections above the village level -- in conjunction with the National People's Congress in 1999. The Center is working too with Chinese election scholars and political reform experts to assess local elections in China and to design procedures that increase the openness and competitiveness of these elections.

In mid-December 2002, the Center observed elections at the county level for the first time. This observation followed a Chinese delegation's visit to the United States in November 2002. The delegation was briefed in Washington, D.C., before observing Election Day in Philadelphia.

The project has achieved impressive results, including:

• Developing a data information system with 233 computers at the county, municipal, and provincial civil affairs offices in the Hunan, Fujian, Jilin, and Shaanxi provinces and training 260 computer operators
• Hosting a national seminar in 2000 to revise the National Procedures on Villager Committee Elections, following which 50,000 copies of the handbook were printed and distributed
• Training 730 local election officials to foster better understanding of election procedures and to compare experiences across the provinces
• Training 165 elected chairs of villager committees in the Shandong province on villager self-government procedures, including managing village finances, organizing villager assemblies, and resolving conflict
• Printing 40,000 posters on electoral procedures for use in villages
• Sponsoring the National Information Network on Villager Self-government (www.chinarural.org) to facilitate the national and global exchange of information on grassroots democracy
• Sponsoring publication of eight books on contemporary China's rural governance and election observation
• Sharing information with the International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, European Union, and the U. N. Development Programme
• Organizing three random surveys of the status of villager committee elections in Hunan, Jilin, and Shaanxi
• Exchanging more than 10 delegations between Ministry of Civil Affairs officials and Center experts.

• Observing township and county elections for People's Congress deputies
• Designing electoral procedures for both direct election of township People's Congress deputies and indirect election of township magistrates
• Conducting pilot projects to: improve competitiveness of township elections with new methods of nominating preliminary candidates and determining of final candidates;  improve campaign procedures; and revise voting procedures, such as ensuring the secrecy of ballots, reducing proxy voting, and verifying absentee balloting
• Convening conferences on the status of Chinese local elections
• Supporting scholars on writing and submitting recommendations on electoral reforms and
• Conducting pilot projects on good governance and accountability measures at the township level.

In September 2002, the project launched the Web site http://www.chinaelections.org on Chinese elections and governance, available both in Chinese and English. The site provides Chinese officials at all levels a resource center for governance and election affairs and gives scholars worldwide the opportunity to study Chinese politics and offer reform measures. Users can access news, articles, academic papers, laws and regulations, and data on Chinese elections and governance on all levels. The site also features special reports on election and governance matters commissioned by the project and carries recommendations generated by the project. With more than 15 million Chinese characters and 3,000 articles online, it is the most authoritative resource on Chinese elections and governance.

Read about the Carter Center's China Village Elections Project.

Interceding for Human Rights

Since the 1980s, President Carter has quietly interceded in the conflict between the Chinese government and Tibetan leaders. President Carter met with Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama on several occasions after visiting Lhasa in 1988. In 1989, he helped both sides agree to high-level negotiations in Geneva. In 1991, after the Tiananmen Square tragedy, President Carter wrote to Chinese leaders on behalf of several political prisoners. Among them were Li Lin and Li Zhi, two dissidents who had been in prison for three months for their pro-democracy activities. The two brothers were released on July 15, 1991, and granted political asylum in the United States.

 

Educational Development

From 1987 to 1992, in collaboration with the China Disabled Persons Federation, the Carter Center's Global 2000 Program trained more than 9,000 teachers to improve educational opportunities for physically and mentally handicapped children. Overall, the China Special Education Project established 886 special schools and 1,239 special classes, in which 85,000 disabled children were enrolled. This is a 75 percent increase in the number of special education schools and a 114 percent increase in the number of special education classes in China. "When the Special Education Project officially ended in mid-1992, it was my hope that China would have the knowledge and tools to provide all of its citizens with the opportunity to participate fully in society," President Carter said.

A second Carter Center initiative, the China Prosthetics Project, helped address the need for modern methods and devices to provide care for and assist China's 3 million amputees. The highlight of the three-year project was construction of a new six-story building to house the Beijing Prosthetic Center, the Prosthetic Research Institute, and the Model Making and Testing Center. Work at the centers and institute has included: designing the first hand-pedaled tricycle for amputees, teaching future prosthetic specialists, fitting affordable plastic devices to patients, and designing new prosthetic components for manufacture in nonprosthetic factories. As planned, Carter Center involvement in the prosthesis project ended in 1991 after its successful start-up. However, the Chinese government has sustained and expanded the project.

The Inaugural Oksenberg Lecture: Click for transcript of "The United States and China: A President's Perspective," delivered by President Carter on May 6, 2002, at Stanford University.

Speech to Beijing (Peking) University: Read the full text of President Carter's speech to Beijing (Peking) University, Sept. 9, 2003.

Election Reports

The Carter Center's Yawei Liu Talks About Democratic Elections in China (PDF) 
Yawei Liu, associate director of the China Village Elections Project of The Carter Center, spoke to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China during a July 8, 2002, Roundtable on Village Elections in China. Read the transcript of his statement.   

Final Report: 2001 China Village Elections (PDF), released Jan. 1, 2002
At the invitation of Minister Zeng Jianhui, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the National People's Congress (NPC), former U.S. President Jimmy Carter led a delegation to the People's Republic of China to promote The Carter Center's China Village Election Project, observe a village election in Zhouzhuang Town, Jiangsu Province, and exchange ideas with top Chinese leaders on issues of common concern.

Final Report: 2000 China Village Elections (PDF), released March 1, 2000
At the invitation of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), People's Republic of China,
The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe villager committee (VC) elections in
Hebei Province from January 4 to 13, 2000.

Final Report: 1998-1999 China Village Elections (PDF), released March 1, 1999
This report describes in detail The Carter Center's activities in China from July 1998 to
January 1999 with a focus on the observation of China's village and township elections
and recommendations to improve the quality of those elections.
 

Postelection Statement on China Township Elections, Jan. 14, 1999  
At the invitation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples' Congress of the People's Republic of China, an eight-person delegation from The Carter Center observed direct elections for township People's Congress representatives and indirect elections for township government officials in Chongqing municipality in southwest China between January 8-13, 1999.

Postelection Statement on China Village Elections, March 16, 1998 (PDF) 
At the invitation of the government of the People's Republic of China,The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe village elections in China from March 2-15, 1998.

Final Report: 1998 China Village Elections (PDF), released March 2, 1998
At the invitation of the government of the People's Republic of China, The Carter Center sent a delegation to observe village elections in China from March 2-15, 1998. In addition to evaluating nine village elections in Jilin and Liaoning provinces, the nine-person team, led by Carter Center Fellow Dr. Robert Pastor, reached a long-term agreement with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) on election-related projects.

Final Report: 1997 China Village Elections (PDF), released March 5, 1997
At China's invitation, The Carter Center sent a seven-person, international team led by Dr. Robert Pastor, a Carter Center Fellow and expert on elections, to observe the village electoral process in Fujian and Hebei provinces.

Postelection Statement on China Village Elections, March 5, 1997 (PDF) 
At China's invitation, The Carter Center sent a seven-person, international team led by Dr. Robert Pastor, a Carter Center fellow and expert on elections, to observe the village electoral process in Fujian and Hebei provinces.