The pandemic has accelerated the establishment of authoritarianism and the collaboration between them makes democracy difficult
Amy Slipowitz, from the human rights NGO, points out that the main reason for the decline of democracy in the world is that authoritarian leaders collaborate with each other. And in that collaboration there is a pre-eminent regime: China. «It lives an authoritarian drift that both its citizens and the rest of the world suffer. Because it retaliates against countries or companies that criticize its excesses with the Uyghurs or with Hong Kong. In addition, it collaborates with other dictatorships regardless of their ideology », she explains. Like the military coup in Thailand and Myanmar, the Taliban regime, Venezuela or the most corrupt countries in Africa.
Andrew Stroehlein of Human Rights Watch adds that China’s rise is especially worrisome because “unlike what happens with Russia, its economically efficient model serves as an example for many other countries in the Global South”, something with which María Silvestre, director of Deustobarómetro, also agrees: “It is dangerous for economic competitiveness to take precedence over human rights.”
Silvestre views with particular concern the collaboration between Russia and China, which maintains a lukewarm position in the face of the invasion of Ukraine. However, he considers that “the demonstrations that have taken place against the zero covid policy, and that have forced the Chinese government to change its strategy, show that it is difficult to maintain authoritarianism with an economic opening.”
For this reason, Slipowitz underlines the importance that propaganda has for Beijing on a global level, which penetrates deeply into the countries in its sphere of influence and even in sectors of Western society. However, he believes that we must also avoid “talking about a new axis of evil.”
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