10 questions, but few answers expected from US

As 'democracy' talks near, report details deceptions built into Washington's ways

Just when mankind needs unity more than ever, the United States is moving in the opposite direction by convening a so-called Summit for Democracy this week that will create artificial divisions in the world, experts said.

"It is highly ironic that the (Joe) Biden administration would choose this particular time in history to gather together the 'Western democracies', when almost all of those countries face serious crises placing into question the effectiveness of their own form of governance," said William Jones, Washington bureau chief for the Executive Intelligence Review.

He made the remarks on Monday during the launch of a research report "Ten Questions for American Democracy" in Beijing.

Issued by the think tank Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China, the report raised questions related to the country's democracy, days from the Thursday start of the divisive event hosted by Biden.

The tough but pertinent questions include whether democracy in the US is for the majority or the minority, whether it ensures checks and balances of power or leads to abuse of power, and whether it improves people's well-being or increases their suffering.

"All of these nations are facing serious questions of trust by their populations," Jones said. "The fundamental problem is that the political elites controlling the governments of the 'Western democracies' have largely distanced themselves from the needs of the people."

Contrary to what they claim a democratic state should do, Jones said, most Western countries, including the US, are "more interested in meeting the needs of the corporations and the moneyed interests", while the Communist Party of China is "directly focused on meeting the changing needs of the Chinese population".

"China in particular has proved to have developed a particularly effective system of governance, one in which the people in the grassroots have the ability to raise issues," he said.

Andy Brooks, general secretary of the New Communist Party of Britain, said in an interview with China Daily that elections in the West are used "so that the smallest number of people can manipulate the maximum number of votes".

Workers on the margins

"The ruling circles in the West do not want debate on the street to go beyond the issues in which they themselves have differing opinions," he said. "Barely a handful of people from the working classes can be found in the bourgeois parliaments that claim to uphold 'freedom' and 'democracy'."

But in China, the UK party leader said, working people are "at the helm of government at all levels".

Diao Daming, an associate professor of US studies at Renmin University of China, said the US' democracy is not a real one in the true sense, as the arrangement and procedural operation of the country's electoral system "fundamentally distort and deny the spirit and value of democracy".

The process of allocating seats in the House of Representatives according to the population of each state has completely deviated from the spirit of democracy, while the polarization of party struggles is also playing a role in suppressing democracy in the process of constituency division, he said.

"It is completely behind the operations of the political elites of the two parties. Voters do not have the opportunity to choose freely. They have no choice."

Citing his own country Brazil as an example, Marco Fernandes, a research fellow from the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, said the US has been undermining democracy in other countries.

By applying a new mechanism called "lawfare", the US government would carry out political persecutions against progressive leaders in Latin American countries that are not aligned with the White House, and accuses them of corruption "with no evidence, but massively repeated by the mainstream and social media", he said.

He also called on the world to support the efforts of China and many other countries of the Global South that are making efforts to build a real multilateral forum.

Cui Chaoqun in London contributed to this story.