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鈥楧emocracy鈥 summit incites division
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THE so-called “Summit for Democracy,” held by the United States recently, sought to thwart democracy under the pretext of democracy, incite division and confrontation, and undermine the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order underpinned by international law, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Saturday.
The spokesperson said that the so-called “Summit for Democracy,” drawing the ideological line and turning democracy into a tool and a weapon, sought to divert attention from US internal problems. The United States attempted to preserve its hegemony over the world.
The spokesperson said the United States is not a “beacon of democracy,” and the American-style democracy has deviated from the essence of democracy. The American-style democracy is full of malaises. Problems like money politics, identity politics, partisanship, political polarization, social division, racial tension, and wealth gap are getting worse. The American-style democracy is a money-based game for the rich.
“Ninety-one percent of congressional elections are won by candidates with greater financial support. It is ‘one person one vote’ in name, but ‘rule of the minority elite’ in reality. The general public are wooed when their votes are wanted but get ignored once the election is over,” said the spokesperson.
The check and balance has become “vetocracy,” with partisan interests put above national development. The flaws of such an electoral system are self-evident, including the rampant use of gerrymandering to manipulate the division of electoral districts that compromises fairness and justice. The dysfunction of the American-style democracy is a fact that cannot be covered up — the Capitol riot that shocked the world, the death of George Floyd that sparked mass protests, the tragic mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the harsh reality of the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer, according to the spokesperson.
The spokesperson said surveys show that 72 percent of Americans believe that democracy in the United States has not been a good example for others to follow in recent years, and 81 percent of Americans believe that there are grave domestic threats to the future of American democracy.
The surveys also show that 44 percent of respondents across the world regard the United States as the biggest threat to global democracy. Even in US allies, most of the people there see American democracy as a “shattered, washed-up has-been,” and 52 percent of respondents in the European Union believe the democratic system in the United States does not work.
The spokesperson stressed that a country’s path to democracy should be chosen by its own people, rather than imposed from outside. As a common value of humanity, democracy is the right of people in all countries. It is not a prerogative of a small number of countries. Whether a country is democratic or not should be decided by its own people, not by a handful of finger-pointing outsiders. A country’s democratic system and its path to democracy should be chosen independently by its own people in light of their national reality.
“China promotes its democracy in accordance with its national conditions and realities. China’s democracy is people’s democracy. Its essence and core is that the people are the masters of the country. China practices whole-process people’s democracy under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. It combines electoral democracy with consultative democracy, and integrates all links of democracy, including democratic election, democratic consultation, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic oversight. It covers economic, political, cultural, social, ecological and all other fields, so that the people’s wills are represented and their voices heard in every aspect of political and social life,” said the spokesperson.
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