Biden touts America as a defender of democracy, China mocks

President Joe Biden concluded its Summit for Democracy on Friday promoting U.S as a defender of democratic values ​​in the world, but received harsh criticism from China and Russia, excluded from the meeting, and also from the domestic front.

“We are affirming the democratic values ​​that are at the heart of our international system and that have been the fundamental elements, for decades, of global growth and prosperity,” he said. Biden at the closing of the two-day appointment, held by videoconference for the pandemic of covid-19.

“And we are committed to working with all who share those values ​​to shape the rules of the road that will guide our progress in the 21st century.”he added, underlining that democracy “Knows no borders” and “Speaks all languages.”

Biden He promised that the United States will support “those who give their people the ability to breathe freely, not those who seek to suffocate them with an iron fist.”

The US president has said many times that the world is reaching a “tipping point” in a struggle between growing autocracies and increasingly criticized democracies.

On the first day of the summit, which brought together some 100 governments and representatives of civil society, Biden He promised to allocate 424 million dollars to support freedom of the press, clean elections and anti-corruption campaigns.

“More than ever, democracy needs champions,” he said.

But while Biden welcomed the appointment in front of a wall of television screens in the White House, his rival China mocked the encounter with propaganda, including an English rap song that said that Americans “sell democracy like they sell Coca-Cola.”

China and Russia, supreme leaders in the field of autocracies according to Biden, reacted angrily, accusing Biden to stoke the ideological divisions of the Cold War.

The Chinese government was especially upset that Taiwan, a democratically governed island that China considers a separatist region, was invited.

But Beijing received a boost in the middle of the summit, when Nicaragua, which was also not invited to the meeting, broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan, saying it recognized “only one China.”

The announcement left Taiwan with only 14 diplomatic allies, just as the US State Department calls on “all countries that value democratic institutions” to “broaden their commitment” to the island.

Skepticism

The emphatic defense of democracy in Biden it also had a mixed reception in the United States.

On the one hand, Republican critics say the Democratic president was not tough enough on China or other adversaries.

“In Joe’s first 11 months Biden in office, he failed to defend freedom in the world and gave in to those who want to dismantle it, emboldening our enemies and undermining our position abroad, “the Republican National Committee said in reaction to his comments on Friday.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers, a report that exposed government lies about the Vietnam War, lashed out at the administration. Biden for seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Washington wants Assange to face trial for WikiLeaks’ 2010 release of classified military documents related to its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US government achieved a major court victory on Friday that paved the way for the 50-year-old Australian to be dispatched from the UK.

“How do you dare Biden to lecture at the Democracy Summit while refusing to forgive ”Assange, Ellsberg tweeted, accusing Biden to “kill freedom of the press for the sake of ‘national security’.”

Another shadow looms over democracy in the United States: the refusal of former Republican President Donald Trump to accept that he lost the 2020 presidential election, and the trauma of his supporters assaulting Congress to prevent the certification of the triumph of Biden.

The call of Biden defending democracy runs up against the skepticism of many.

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 17% of those surveyed in 16 advanced economies “consider that American democracy is a good model for other countries to follow.” And another 57% “think it used to be a good example, but it hasn’t been in recent years.”