After Biden’s summit: China calls US democracy a “weapon of mass destruction”

Relations between the USA and China are tense, and Beijing is now being challenged by the US government’s “democracy summit”. This would instrumentalize the term democracy in order to bring about a confrontation.

After the peace summit organized by the USA, China described US democracy as a “weapon of mass destruction”. “‘Democracy’ has long since become a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ that the US is using to interfere in other countries,” said a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Beijing speaks of pseudo-democracies

The USA organized the “democracy summit” in order to “draw lines of ideological prejudice, to instrumentalize democracy and use it as a weapon and to cause division and confrontation”. Beijing will “firmly oppose any kind of pseudo-democracies,” said the spokesman.

China – like Russia – had already sharply criticized the summit organized by US President Joe Biden in advance and described US democracy as “corrupt” and “failed”. Instead, Beijing promoted its own version of “holistic popular democracy”.

The “democracy summit” was an election campaign promise made by the US president who placed the struggle between democracies and “autocratic governments” at the center of his foreign policy. China and Russia were not invited, and NATO member Turkey and EU member Hungary were not on the invitation list either. Taiwan, on the other hand, was invited to China’s annoyance.

Warning of the advance of autocracies

At the Biden Summit for Democracy, the USA and numerous other actors warned urgently against a global advance by autocracies. “All over the world autocrats are feeling encouraged, human rights violations have multiplied,” said US Vice President Kamala Harris at the two-day online conference with representatives from more than 100 governments and civil society representatives. UN Secretary General António Guterres called on Friday for more engagement in the defense of democratic values ​​worldwide.

Since taking office in January, US President Biden has been trying to forge a common front with allies against the adversaries China and Russia. Relations with Beijing are more strained than ever since diplomatic relations were established in 1979. Most recently, the US announcement of a diplomatic boycott of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing caused trouble. Tensions with Moscow have grown to such an extent that Biden is faced with questions about the possible use of US combat forces in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.