No one likes to be left out of a party. So perhaps it was inevitable there would be hard feelings among the autocratic regimes denied a place at President Biden’s “Summit of Democracy”, held under a virtual marquee over two days this week. Some of the most peeved are those who came closest to qualifying for the 110-country guest list. Hungary, the only European Union member state denied entry, was so angry to be snubbed that it vetoed full participation by Brussels. Poland, whose democracy is rated by Freedom House, a pro-democracy think tank, as in even steeper decline over the past five years, was perhaps lucky to make the cut at all.
The inclusion of business-friendly but increasingly authoritarian India under Narendra Modi, and the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte, have raised eyebrows among those countries’ embattled pro-democracy advocates. Arab potentates who regard themselves as stalwart US allies are miffed at the reminder they do not qualify for this club. China and Russia’s reaction to their exclusion was to rail against the summit itself, with Beijing simultaneously dismissing it as both a joke and a sinister imperialist plot. Their ambassadors wrote an article accusing Mr Biden of seeking to divide the world along ideological lines and start a new Cold War.
The summit was born from an early promise of Mr Biden’s to bring together the world’s democracies and to push back on encroaching authoritarianism. Containing China was an obvious if unspoken goal. But the president also spoke of drawing a line under his predecessor’s troubling flirtation with autocrats and re-establishing America as a beacon in the world. “Democracy doesn’t happen by accident,” Mr Biden said. “We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.”
Some have questioned whether America is still the truest beacon of democracy. Taiwan, thrilled to attend, to Beijing’s fury, ranks ten points higher than the US on Freedom House’s global score. A common test of a democracy is that incumbents can lose elections and thus lose power. The assault on the Capitol in January brought the US close to failing that test. State surveillance, creeping disenfranchisement and the outsize role of money in politics have all dragged down its score.
Indeed Russia made much play over such failings of American democracy in a lengthy statement, while Beijing issued its own arguments laying out the superiority of the “Chinese model of democracy”. That the surreal Chinese version lacks almost any of the commonly understood hallmarks of a free society has not prevented Beijing from asserting that its Communist Party dictatorship is a valid form of democracy.
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The danger of course is that such a summit becomes another global talking shop full of high-minded notions and little action. Nonetheless the timing could not be more critical. Two participating democracies, Ukraine and Taiwan, are facing the threat of military action from the authoritarian giants on their doorstops, who have been emboldened by the belief that democracy is on the wane and that other democratic nations will not come to their aid. That makes it even more urgent that democracies renew their common sense of purpose with concrete plans to support the summit’s pledge to counter authoritarianism, fight corruption and promote respect for human rights around the world.
