China's leaders are violently allergic to criticism. But last week they allowed a prominent American to air some irritating thoughts before a domestic public audience for the first time since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Visiting former President Jimmy Carter told some 400 people at Beijing's Foreign Affairs College that "worldwide concerns" for imprisoned Chinese protesters are legitimate, pressing and curable -- by a grant of "amnesty to all nonviolent dissidents."
Carter's message, which he repeated to Premier Li Peng and Communist General Secretary Jiang Zemin, produced no visible results, though the former President did receive assurances that Chinese students in the...
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