President Biden urged an invited group of world leaders to “lock arms” against autocracies at an online democracy summit today seen as a US-led counterweight to China’s growing global influence.
He acknowledged that American democracy was itself “an ongoing struggle”, citing data that more than half of nations “have experienced a decline in at least one aspect of democracy over the last ten years, including the United States”. He pledged $424 million to support investigative journalism, fight corruption and defend human rights.
China, left off the guest list and infuriated by the participation of Taiwan, accused Biden of “weaponising democracy”.
Other nations that were snubbed included Russia, Hungary and Turkey, while eyebrows were raised at the participation of some of the 110 invitees over their dubious domestic records, among them Brazil, Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Biden called for an annual meeting to compare democratic achievements. “In the face of sustained and alarming challenges to universal human rights, democracy needs champions,” he said as he opened the two-day virtual gathering facing a screen where at least 80 world leaders were shown. “Democracy doesn’t happen by accident, we have to renew it with each generation.
Advertisement
“Will we allow the backward slide of rights and democracy to continue unchecked? Or will we together have the vision and courage once more to lead the march of human progress and freedom forward.”
•Joe Biden threatens Vladimir Putin with gas embargo over Ukraine
Without naming his specific targets, but with China probably uppermost in mind, he added: “By outside pressure from autocrats, they seek to advance their own power, expand their influence around the world and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today’s challenges.”
China was vocal in its condemnation. “No matter how the US glosses over itself, its true face of seeking hegemony under the guise of democracy has long been exposed to the world,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said. “The so-called ‘summit for democracy’ will go down in history as a manipulator and saboteur of democracy.”
Beijing staged a virtual international forum on democracy to coincide with Biden’s summit. It also issued a scathing report on American democracy, denouncing it as “a game of money politics” with flawed electoral rules.
Advertisement
It pointed to the riot at the US Capitol on January 6 as “revealing what is underneath the gorgeous appearance of the American-style democracy” and quoted a tweet by Boris Johnson which condemned the “disgraceful scenes”.
It added: “The US is not a straight-A student when it comes to democracy, still less a role model for democracy.”
Ambassadors to the US from China and Russia wrote a joint essay describing the Biden administration as exhibiting a “Cold-War mentality” that would “stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world”.
•Russian invasion of Ukraine would be like Second World War, warns defence chief
Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, declined to attend the conference without giving an explanation. His country is seen as moving closer to China but Khan said today that he had no interest in joining any bloc, offering instead to help smooth relations between Beijing and Washington.
Advertisement
Separately, China has been pressuring European companies to boycott Lithuania in a dispute over the status of Taiwan, according to officials and businesses in the Baltic state. Lithuania has criticised the persecution of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, the erosion of democratic freedoms in Hong Kong and efforts by Chinese companies to buy up parts of its infrastructure.
Lithuania has also withdrawn from the Chinese foreign ministry’s 17+1 group, a network funnelling investment into central and eastern Europe, and has allowed Taiwan to establish a quasi-diplomatic office in Vilnius, its capital. Beijing claims the self-governing island as a breakaway province.
Unlike the two dozen similar offices in other countries the Lithuanian branch is explicitly identified as a representative office of Taiwan rather than Taipei, the term China prefers.
China said this amounted to “gross interference” in its internal affairs and responded by withdrawing its ambassador from Vilnius last month. This week it began a further economic offensive, removing Lithuania from its customs system, effectively cutting it off from the Chinese market.
It has also been accused of threatening to shut out European companies unless they cut all ties with Lithuanian businesses. Vidmantas Janulevicius, president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industries, told Reuters that several firms had been pressured to “drop Lithuanian-made goods”. He said: “Previously, we only had threats it could happen.”
Advertisement
None of the firms has been named. The Lithuanian government is looking at offering financial support to companies affected by the boycott and has asked EU allies for diplomatic backing.
A democracy summit convened by the US presents an easy target for its critics (David Charter writes).
American democracy is being tested at all levels, from the previous president claiming the last election was rigged, to routine gerrymandering of electoral districts, and bitter polarization of school boards. Overseas, this year marked the chaotic end of US-led nation-building efforts in Afghanistan.
In the week of President Biden’s summit, Mark Meadows, chief-of-staff to President Trump, filed a lawsuit to resist appearing before a committee of the House of Representatives investigating the most jaw-dropping assault on US democracy in the modern era. The world watched astounded when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6 as Biden was about to be declared the victor in the presidential election.
It showed just how precarious democracy can be but also how resilient. The riot led to only a brief pause in the process of transferring power thanks to a vice-president and the majority of members of Congress who stuck to the democratic playbook and military leaders determined to stay well out of politics.
Advertisement
Biden was suitably humble about the state of his own country’s democracy today as “an ongoing struggle to live up to our highest ideals and to heal our divisions”.
While his chief critics have plenty of ammunition they are also keen to hide manifest shortcomings that make life for ordinary people more precarious: the repression of opposition figures, silencing of journalists and censorship of free speech on an industrial scale. The biggest female tennis star in China has disappeared from view after accusing a senior official of rape, a stark contrast with how the #MeToo movement played out in the US.
American democracy is flawed and raucous but, although he removed Churchill’s bust from the Oval Office, Biden might as well have borrowed from the former British prime minister that it is “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”.
