China strongly criticises 'US-style democracy'; calls it 'game of money politics'

Ahead of US President Joe Biden’s two “summits of democracy”, China has launched a campaign to discredit what it calls "US-style democracy’". According to The Guardian, in recent days, Chinese media outlets and diplomats have made a string of attacks on the US governing system, calling it a “game of money politics” and “rule of the few over the many”. They have also touted China’s one-party governing model, calling it “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics” and “a whole process democracy”. 

As per the media outlet, China issued a paper entitled "China: Democracy That Works". Separately, China’s foreign ministry released a report on the state of democracy in the US. The state-owned Xinhua news agency accompanied the foreign ministry release with a series of cartoons that mocked the US system. Global Times also said that the report exposed the deficiencies and abuse of democracy in the United States, as well as the harm of it exporting such democracy. 

“The US is far from a ‘beacon of democracy’ and has nothing worth showing off given the chaotic American society,” Global Times quoted a Chinese academic as saying.

According to Xinhua, the report said that from a historical perspective, the development of democracy in the US was a step forward. However, it also said that over the years, democracy in the US has become alienated and degenerated, and it has increasingly deviated from the essence of democracy and its original design. Further, the report also elaborated on the alienation and the malaises of democracy in the US from three aspects - the system fraught with deep-seated problems, messy and chaotic practices of democracy, and disastrous consequences of the US export of its brand of democracy.

US democracy summit ‘very opposite of democracy’ 

Meanwhile, it is pertinent to mention that China’s recent campaign to discredit the US is intended to highlight the shortcoming of the American democracy. It comes ahead of Biden’s "democracy summit" on 9 and 10 December. Le Yucheng, China’s vice-foreign minister, has described the upcoming democracy summit as the “very opposite of democracy”. He said that the summit would “do no good to global solidarity; no good to cooperation, and no good to development”. 

“China’s whole-process people’s democracy is not the kind that wakes up at the time of voting and goes back to dormant afterwards,” Yucheng said as quoted by The Guardian. 

(Image: AP)