The apologists for China and its government have been out in full force these past couple of weeks. The conversations both on SocMed and in the press/media have ranged the gamut from “China never did anything wrong” to “China has always been mistreated.”
It is understandable as Joe Biden and the US prepare for “The Summit for Democracy.” It is a virtual conference, hosted by the United States, “to renew democracy at home and confront autocracies abroad.”
From the official web site: “Since day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has made clear that renewing democracy in the United States and around the world is essential to meeting the unprecedented challenges of our time. On December 9 to 10, 2021, President Biden will host the first of two Summits for Democracy, which will bring 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 today through collective action.”
“In advance of the first summit, we are consulting with experts from government, multilateral organizations, philanthropies, civil society, and the private sector to solicit bold, practicable ideas around three key themes: Defending against authoritarianism, Addressing and fighting corruption, and Promoting respect for human rights.”
Participation though is by “Invitation Only” and while the promotion of global democracy is goal, naturally as would any nation, promotion of the US is an important side agenda.Therefore, it is important that Biden does not have to put up with any sort of nonsense from Russia or China, especially in light of the fact that both the Ukraine and Taiwan are going to attend. Others left off the guest list include Turkey and Hungary.
The attendees are supposed to be nations that respect and follow “democracy” as measured by the benchmarks used by The Cato Institute in Washington DC and the Fraser Institute in Vancouver, Canada, co-publishers of the annual Human Freedom Index Report ranking 162 countries in two distinct categories: Personal Freedom and Economic Freedom to form the final Human Freedom score.
The problem is that Hungary, according to the Human Freedom index, scores better at 7.65 than Ukraine (7.26) and hugely better than another attendee, Pakistan at 5.69. Turkey scores at 6.21 versus Iraq with a rating of 4.34. But there is no way that the US is going to do anything to help the presidents of Turkey—Erdoğan—or Hungary—Orbán—who are both running for reelection this year.
The top 10 “Freest Countries in the World for 2021-Human Freedom Index” include Hong Kong in third spot, while Singapore ranked 28 and Hungary ranked 49, yet none of these countries were invited to the Summit. However, countries like Pakistan ranked 140 and Ukraine ranked 110 were invited.
In Southeast Asia, just four out of the 11 Southeast Asian states were invited, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste. While there are those that strongly believe that the Philippines does not deserve the invitation and is only invited because the US wants a counterfoil to China, the fact is that the Philippines scores higher on the Freedom Index (6.88) than all our Asean neighbors, except Singapore and Cambodia. And Cambodia is deep in China’s economic sphere.
China went so far as to publish across the Internet infographics on “China’s Whole-Process People’s Democracy” and “Comparison of election systems between China and the US.” The latter highlights that “Voter turnout in China is 90 percent versus 66 percent in the US and that the government has a 94 percent approval rating.” Well, the last is certainly correct with Biden at negative 9.9 percent net approval. Apparently, democracy is alive everywhere and only where the US says it is.
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