The many faces of democracy

US President Joe Biden has hosted the first of two Summits for Democracyon December 9-10, 2021, bringing together leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies in the current era through collective action.

In a turbulent world faced with major challenges owing to the global Covid-19 pandemic, global warming, strife and conflict in numerous regions, perhaps hosting a summit on democracy, may not merit being discussed as a pressing issue. Simultaneously, the summit guest list has raised many questions — for example, the omissions and inclusions. Bosnia-Herzegovina, which scored 53 in Freedom House’s index, was not invited, but Kosovo, score 54, was invited alongside the nine other Balkan countries. Pakistan, which had a score of 37, made the list, while Sri Lanka, score 56, did not. Turkey, Russia and China are prominent omissions in a list where invitations were issued to very small states. Around 30 countries with populations under 1 million received invitations to attend the summit.

Prima facie, it would appear to be a move to isolate Russia and China. In November, two ambassadors to the United States, Anatoly Antonov of Russia and Qin Gang of China published a rare joint opinion article assailing the summit as “an evident product of its Cold-War mentality” that would “stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world, creating new “dividing lines.” Furthermore, inviting Taiwan would be construed as deliberately baiting China. Readers may recall that during the Second World War, China was under Japanese occupation. The Chinese nation should have achieved its independence after the surrender of Japan in 1945 but it got embroiled in a civil war where the Kuomintang (KMT) or Chinese Nationalist Party under General Chiang Kai Shek, took over reins of government with the help of UA and its allies, who were opposed to the Communist Party of China (CPC).

After a bitter and bloody struggle, the under-equipped and badly outnumbered CPC defeated the KMT and forced it to retreat to the tiny island of Taiwan, where it formed the Republic of China (ROC). People’s Republic of China (PRC) declared its independence on October 1, 1949, but for 22 years PRC was ignored and ROC was not only recognized as China, but also given a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. US President Richard Nixon desired to visit Beijing and establish ties with PRC. As a prerequisite, PRC was given a permanent seat in the UNSC on October 25, 1971 after ROC was expelled. On December 15, 1978, in a joint Sino-US communiqué, in one of the most dramatic announcements of the Cold War, the US announced the formal recognition of PRC and the severance of its relations with Taiwan.

PRC considers Taiwan as an integral part of mainland China and is looking forward for it to rejoin PRC. Till recently, the Chinese position was respected but the Biden administration has been wooing Taiwan, much to the chagrin of PRC and now the outreach to it to join the democracy summit at the cost of ignoring Beijing.

China and Russia are not the only ones that have challenged US’s credentials to being democratic. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy worldwide, in its Global State of Democracy Report 2021, notes that the US has its own issues with democracy. According to the report, the United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale.The European think tank noted that the historic turning point came when Trump baselessly questioned the results of the 2020 elections, which culminated in the storming of the US Capitol building on January 6 by supporters of the former president.

Similar pessimism on American democracy is reflected in a new poll by the Harvard University Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. According to the poll, 52% of young people in the US believe that the country’s democracy is either “in trouble” or “failed.” Only 7% said that it is “healthy.”

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry of PRC, on December 5, issued a report titled ‘The State of Democracy in the United States’. The preamble of the report describes democracy as a common value shared by all humanity, which is a right for all nations, not a prerogative reserved to a few. It rules that democracy takes different forms, and there is no one-size-fits-all model. It would be totally undemocratic to measure the diverse political systems in the world with a single yardstick or examine different political civilizations from a single perspective. The political system of a country should be independently decided by its own people.

According to the report, the United States’ system of democracy is derived from its own practices. This system is unique, not universally applicable, and it is far from perfect. However, over the years, the US, despite the structural flaws and problematic practice of its democratic system, has claimed itself as the “model of democracy”. It has incessantly interfered in other countries’ internal affairs and waged wars under the guise of “democracy”, creating regional turbulence and humanitarian disasters.

The fact is that the CPC has evolved a system of democracy which is most suitable to the Chinese nation. This form of democracy is time tested, has run the gamut of trials, errors and course corrections, which resulted in propelling PRC from an impoverished nation to an economic giant and achieved its twin centenary goals. In 2021, 100 years after the establishment of CPC, absolute poverty has been eradicated from China. By the centenary of the founding of PRC in 2049, China will have become a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country.” These are no mean achievements, besides controlling the Covid-19 pandemic effectively and lending support to others less fortunate.

In a nutshell, instead of trying to shoe-horn one’s own brand of democracy on others, efforts should be made to be able to appreciate the many faces of democracy, which work for them.

The writer is the former Group Captain PAF and an author.