Autocracies are not democracies
The extraordinary joint article written by the Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the US, slamming President Joe Biden’s upcoming virtual democracy summit, shows how uncomfortable both dictatorships are about the gathering of 110 nations, to which they were not invited. The article by Chinese ambassador Qin Gang and Russia’s Anatoly Antonov is a collection of contradictions and paradoxes. Despite China being a one-party communist state and Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring he will be in power until 2036, the article claimed there was “no need to worry about democracy in Russia and China”. US efforts to champion democracy were described as a “product of its Cold War mentality” that contradicted the development of the modern world. Yet the article in The National Interest, a conservative US foreign affairs magazine, claimed democracy was “a universal right of all peoples”. China has not concealed its anger that Taiwan will attend Mr Biden’s summit.
In the article, the ambassadors claimed China was an “extensive whole-process socialist democracy … (which) reflects the people’s will, suits the country’s realities and enjoys strong support from the people”. Russia, where elections are a farce and opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been in jail for most of this year, was a “democratic federative law-governed state”, the ambassadors wrote.
Both nations objected to Mr Biden’s calls for a “rules-based international order”, which is likely to be a theme at the summit. Revitalising the international rule of law, especially in trade, is vital in response to China, in particular, using coercive economic tactics such as trade boycotts to punish nations that incur its wrath. That includes Australia. Russia and China claimed that calling for a rules-based order went “against the UN charter and other basic norms of international law”. That complaint is also hollow. After the International Court in The Hague ruled in 2016 in favour of The Philippines and against China taking possession of vast swathes of the South China Sea and its islands and reefs, China thumbed its nose at the decision and carried on building military installations in territory it never possessed.
In view of the torturous treatment meted out to dissidents in their own nations, the article’s swipe at governments’ handling of protests against Covid restrictions in Europe and Australia also was unconvincing.
The summit on December 9 and 10 will bring together governments and the private sector to discuss the problems posed by authoritarian states. Sharing concerns and support can only make the challenges easier.