'Democracy' summit a show of hands for US-style authoritarianism: China Daily editorial

US President Joe Biden will host a virtual summit on Thursday and Friday for leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector. The summit according to the US State Department offers an opportunity for the United States "to listen, learn, and engage with a diverse range of actors whose support and commitment is critical for global democratic renewal" and for the US to acknowledge its own imperfections and confront them openly and transparently.

Unfortunately, that opportunity for self-reflection will go to waste. Although the US claims the summit will be focusing on "initiatives to defend democracy and human rights at home and abroad", its brazen invitation to the secessionist-minded Tsai Ing-wen administration of China's Taiwan island, for example, shows the true purpose of the summit.

The real focus of the summit will be tackling what the US considers to be "the greatest threats faced by democracies today". From those countries not invited to attend the summit, it is clear what threats the US wants to tackle with "collective action". It is also clear that what it is referring to when it talks about democracy is simply the hegemonic system it has built and seeks to maintain.

It should be evident to all that the Joe Biden administration is using the banner of democracy to create another concentric circle around the US as it freezes the divisions of a new Cold War into place.

The US has already formed two such circles. The inner circle is AUKUS, the Anglo-Saxon security alliance the US has formed with Australia and the United Kingdom. The second circle is the one it has formed with NATO in Europe and the Quad mechanism in the Asia-Pacific.

Now it is trying to lure developing countries to its cause, as the most expendable outer defensive circle for its hegemony. That bolstering the US hegemony, rather than fighting COVID-19 pandemic or climate change, tops the agenda of the meeting belies its democratic credentials and exposes its undemocratic and bellicose nature.

It is not only undemocratic, but also immoral for the US to set the stage for such a gathering to measure the diverse political systems in the world with its own rotten yardstick, as the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs states in a report published on Sunday.

For those in the US that benefit from its democratic model, democracy is a talisman invoked to avert evil and bring good fortune. But it is nothing more than a trinket for those on the other side of the coin.

As US democracy has increasingly become a game of money politics, a rule of the minority and a vetocracy, it has not only deviated from its original design and purpose, threatening itself from within, but also become a major factor in many of the problems the world faces today.

In reality, the gathering convened by the Biden administration, apart from being a gab-fest to praise US-style democracy, is a show of hands for US-style authoritarianism — showing who's willing to do as it says in order to be a member of its club.