Ahead of Biden’s summit, China’s communists slam US democracy

On Saturday, China’s Communist Party slammed American democracy, criticising a global democracy summit hosted by President Joe Biden next week and discussing the merits of its own political system. 

Officials from the party questioned how a polarised country could lecture others after botching its response to COVID-19, and said that attempting to force others to copy the Western democratic model is “doomed to fail”. 

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The pandemic, according to Tian Peiyan, deputy director of the party’s Policy Research Office, exposed flaws in the American system. He attributed the high COVID-19 death toll in the United States to political squabbles and a divided government at all levels.

“Such democracy brings not happiness but disaster to voters,” he said at a press conference announcing the release of a government report on the Communist Party’s version of democracy, which is tightly controlled by the party. 

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After a senior Chinese official said that Biden’s Summit for Democracy divides countries and points fingers at others, the White House pushed back on Thursday. 

The participants, according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, will take into account how to work together to defend democracy around the world. 

We’re not going to apologise for that, she said. 

She was responding to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng’s opening remarks at a government-sponsored expert forum for foreign journalists in Beijing.

It claims to be acting in the name of democracy, Le said, without naming the United States. “However, this is the polar opposite of democracy. It will have no positive impact on global solidarity, cooperation, or development. 

Biden, who has made the competition between democracies and autocracies a central theme of his presidency, has invited around 110 governments to a two-day virtual “Summit for Democracy” that will begin on Thursday. China and Russia have not been invited.

With inputs from Associated Press