The US president, questioned by some of the guests at his virtual summit, defends a common agenda to prevent the advance of authoritarian regimes
President Joe Biden concluded the Democracy Summit with a call to protect electoral integrity, combat foreign interference in elections, and strengthen independent media. The two-day virtual summit via Zoom brought together a global audience of 80 world leaders to forge a common international commitment in defense of democracy, an issue that the US president called “urgent” at the present time for everybody.
Citing recent studies, Biden warned of significant democratic backsliding in more than half of the world’s democracies in the past 15 years, including his own country, and of the need for a concerted effort to protect it. The US president presented the summit as a means to promote the idea of the need to strengthen national democratic institutions and forge a common agenda to counter the advance of authoritarian regimes.
The Russian and Chinese ambassadors in Washington included a joint statement in the Center of National Interest publication in which they condemned the Biden Administration for adopting a divisive “cold war mentality”, pointing out that their authoritarian states are a different model of democracy. .
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“Visible deterioration” since 2019.
A group of experts adds the United States to its annual list of countries in democratic decline -
Civicus monitor report.
9 out of 10 people in the world live in countries with severe restrictions on civil liberties
On the first day of the summit, a democracy watch group Civicus Monitor announced that 9 out of 10 people in the world live in countries where civil liberties are severely restricted. His most recent report downgrades the democratic position of 13 countries, including Belgium, the Czech Republic and Poland, all of them present at the virtual meeting. Just last month, the International IDEA think tank added the US to its annual list of declining democracies for the first time, highlighting the “visible deterioration” since 2019.
The countries included in the summit publicly pledged to strengthen their own democracies at home, an almost heroic task in itself in these times. In Europe, Hungary was the only EU country that did not receive an invitation, in addition to Bosnia and Herzegovina, something that caused consternation in Sarajevo. Among the guests, the United Kingdom, which recently left the EU, and Poland, whose government has had significant disagreements with the EU on issues related to the rule of law and human rights.
The invitation from Taiwan outraged China, although it did not attend as a sovereign state. Pakistan abruptly withdrew from the summit on Thursday without explanation, though sources in Islamabad pointed to China’s absence as the reason. Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, Pakistan has received a cold shoulder from Washington, and President Biden has yet to phone Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Modesty
In Latin America, where support for democracy has dropped to less than 50% in the last decade according to the Latinobarómetro organization, seven countries were left off the guest list, including Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Some critics expressed concern about the inclusion of Brazil, in serious democratic decline, or about the support for Cuba and Venezuela by invited countries such as Mexico and Argentina. Others questioned Washington’s authority to make distinctions at a time when it was suffering its own democratic decline.
Biden has correctly defined the need to save democratic systems as the fundamental political problem of our time, which he faces with a more modest attitude away from the traditional diplomatic arrogance that has characterized the country. If the last 4 years have been of any use, it has been to teach humility.
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