Former US President Carter passed away, he was most proud of his decision to establish diplomatic relations with China

Former US President Jimmy Carter has died, aged 100 – and there's been a mixed reception of news.

Carter, who died at his Georgia home on Sunday, was "comforted by his family and friends", said a spokesperson for his wife – former first lady Rosalynn Smith Carter – who did not disclose further details or the cause of death.

Back on February 24, 2023, CNN, quoting a Carter family member, said that Carter – then aged 98 – was receiving hospice care at his home in Georgia, with close family members and friends by his bedside.

"His children and grandchildren…are here with him," said LeAnn Smith, the niece of Rosalynn Smith Carter.

Smith believed that as he moved "toward the end" Carter's journey could bring comfort to those close to him.

A statement from The Carter Center, based in Atlanta, on February 18, 2023, said that Carter, having endured a series of short hospital stays in recent months, had chosen to focus on spending time at home with his family – to seek hospice care instead of further medical intervention. Carter's family – and his physicians – "fully support his decision," it added...

Oldest ex-president

Carter – who was born in 1924, soon after the dawn of commercial flight and three years before American women were granted the right to vote – was America's highest-serving chief executive.

In later life, Carter – like many people – suffered a series of minor strokes. His medical problems were widely chronicled as he aged. In 2015 – at the grand old age of 91 – cancer was added to his list of conditions, as melanoma spread to his liver and brain. But, doctors later said, the cancer had disappeared.

At age 93, Carter told People magazine: "We had a very serious bout with cancer two years ago … we feel wonderful."

However, Carter fell several times, including on an Atlanta street, requiring hospitalization.

In the spring of 2019, Carter was hospitalized for debilitation associated with age. Doctors performed a decompressive craniotomy because "pressure in the head" needed "to be relieved", and also replaced his left hip.

A few months later – around Thanksgiving – Carter celebrated his 95th birthday. Soon he was also hospitalized with a minor intestinal infection. Carter then said, and would reiterate until his passing: "I'm enjoying pretty good health."

In 2019 it was reported Carter's "mind is still sharp". However, he did appear to "move more slowly than he did at the beginning of the last decade".

When it came to public appearances, Carter – like many 90-plus olds – was less active in his later years.

The final straw for Carter – or what kept him away from public events, including US President Joe Biden's inauguration in January 2021 – was the COVID-19 pandemic. Carter missed out on the inauguration, though Biden made a special point of visiting his Georgia home the following April.

In office Carter was more robust...

'America's old friend'

"…In the long run, the American people will realize that dealing well with China is essential to our own prosperity, our own peace, and the good life in our nation."

In the book A Call to Action, first published in February 2014, Carter reflected that, in office, of all the major accomplishments of his presidency, the one that made him most proud and "is now regarded by the great majority of Americans as one of the finest moments of my years in the Oval Office" was when he decided to establish diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China:

"It seemed to be the right and proper thing to do, after nearly 30 years of hostility and bitterness. The Chinese, led by Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping, had demonstrated their ability to think creatively about the problems facing China and their commitment to solving them by practical means…."

Carter's decision to normalize diplomatic ties between the US and the PRC is remembered by China as one of the greatest achievements of the Carter administration. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao praised Carter in 2007 as "America's old friend".

From 2011-17, Carter visited Beijing 10 times to discuss issues such as North Korea's nuclear program...

An American president of peace

Within hours of the news of Carter's death breaking, Chinese social media was swamped by an outpouring of condolences and praises for the late leader – including the label "The Last Good American".

On Weibo (a copy of China's Twitter) many commented how Carter had been involved with so many projects in rural China, building homes for impoverished communities, helping to alleviate diseases among the rural population and promoting women's health, and education.

The late leader was dubbed the "Peacemaker" (和平使者) – in Chinese culture, an honorific for those who devote themselves to bringing about reconciliation and non-violent solutions to issues...

Carter Center: A Nobel mission

Carter's greatest legacy may be the Carter Center, which he and Rosalynn established in 1982.

The Carter Center – which is "supported by private contributions and operated…completely independently" – is "committed to advancing human rights and alleviating unnecessary suffering…in more than 80 countries".

It is for its commitment to human rights and its fight to make good on its mission to "fight disease, hunger and poverty" that, in 2002, Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2020, Carter told Vanity Fair: "One of my greatest hopes is that…the Carter Center, which will outlive me, [will] still be doing humanitarian efforts and working to resolve conflict around the world."

As he wrote later that year in Carter on…: "I am optimistic that we can solve many serious problems during the rest of my life if everyone – young and old – joins with others who are dedicated to the great challenges of our planet, which we share in common."

And the Carter Center has indeed done some remarkable work, including its fight to all but eradicate a disease known as the Guinea worm: In 1986, the Carter Center launched a global campaign against Guinea worm, a crippling, disfiguring disease that had blighted many lives in Africa and Asia. When Carter and Rosalynn – who serves as president of the center – started working to combat Guinea worm, there were about 3.5 million cases a year in at least 20 countries, mostly from drinking unclean water.

By 2020, Guinea worm infections dropped to 54 cases across two countries… and by 2021, just 14 cases remained.

Carter told reporters: "We hope to live long enough so we will see this terrible thing disappear… And if it does, as I think it will, then we will have accomplished something that neither Jesus nor Mohammed nor Moses did – and that is to eliminate a disease from Earth."

The Carter Center's work – especially to fight the disease Guinea worm – has saved millions of lives...

America's most underrated and most liked ex-president

Jimmy "Goodtime" Carter. That was the title of an obituary for the 40th US president that ran on the front page of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution on December 29, 2022.

Indeed, among the most striking revelations of an American poll taken in the 1990s was the widespread admiration in which ordinary Americans continue to hold Carter.

The Carter Center called the late former president "a global statesman" – and, indeed, Carter was respected on the world stage for humanitarian work around the world.

On his 94th birthday, Carter called on US citizens to "serve" and "care for others". In the same year, Carter was named the "most likeable" ex-president in America – more than 50% more "likable" even than "the most likeable man in politics", Bill Clinton.

But while Americans may have been able to see the goodness in Carter, Republicans, in particular, have often struggled to find much of any goodness about the man – especially about "his record as president".

For example, when a Georgia pastor told supporters that Carter – the former governor of Georgia – was "a better politician than Trump" in 2019, Trump responded to critics of his leadership by saying: "Well, he doesn't have a record. If anything, he has a really bad record…He didn't serve."

In January 2021, Trump – fresh from inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol, was asked if he would like to congratulate President Biden. "Yes," Trump replied – after pausing to take another shot at the "good man", Carter.

"What about Jimmy [Carter] and his wife, and the wonderful lady [Hillary] Clinton? They can call them, you know? That'd be great…."

Trump, who's been in trouble a lot with Carter over the past four years (he even called Carter in 2017 to thank him for helping get rid of Donald Trump as a real estate developer at a golf project near a Georgia Air Force base in 1981), has since refused to make direct contact with the former president since 2021:

"I think he's a wonderful person, he's a fine person," Trump said. "He was not very good as a president…"

"America's least effective president"

On 15 December, Carter called on the new Georgia governor to "do the right thing" and issue a stay of execution for Gregory Robinson.

That same weekend, the New York Times was publishing a Sunday review of 57 history books and biographies. Their selection – called "This is 2021's Best Book About…" – named Jon Meacham's A Southerner's Progress: A Life of Jimmy Carter 's "best book about presidential history of 2021".

Meacham, in a recent New York Times opinion piece in response to "America's ongoing catastrophe of violence" advocated for the "wisdom of moderation" – and said "we see the need for Carter-like qualities today, when…violence…is an increasingly common condition…"

That same weekend…Jimmy Carter was America's "Least Effective President", according to USA TODAY.

"Of all the failures of Carter's presidency," wrote the USA TODAY's Tom Visnick, "the 40th president is perhaps most unfairly maligned on the economy. After all, it was Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford that presided over the inflationary years prior – years that culminated in Carter's infamous and mocked malaise speech of July 1979…."

In fact, according to Visnick, Carter was, arguably, a more effective economic manager than any president since FDR – which is why the US economy rebounded in 1981 and 1982…

The 40th president of the United States will not be easily forgotten...and not only for his good deeds and humanitarian efforts in life...