Summit for Democracy Not Taiwan's Antidote
By Dennis Lu
The Storm Media, December 15, 2021
The United States may still be the world's most powerful country, but it is not necessarily the cure for all Taiwan's problems!
While just as many people think that Taiwan’s participation to the global “Summit for Democracy” led by the administration of President Joe Biden means that Taiwan’s democracy is recognized by the West, yet few people can tell that what is behind the Summit for Democracy is a reflection of the predicament of United States’ democracy. Participating in the Summit for Democracy, what Taiwan should think about is how Taiwan should avoid the problems pointed out in the Summit; and from the perspective of Taiwan's interests, do we really have to share the pressure that the United States intents to transfer?
At the opening ceremony of the Summit for Democracy, President Biden looked at the representatives of more than one hundred countries around the world on the big screen and called on the global democracies to face the challenges together. Among so many split screens, it was too dazzling to see who was participating. Perhaps Biden himself didn't want to see clearly who were there! Because among those countries invited to the Summit, there were too many puzzling choices. In the big screen before Biden’s eyes, Singapore and Turkey were missing. Perhaps these two countries are imperfect, but based on “the restrictions on media freedom” and “the suppression of the opposition”, compared with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has spared no effort in suppressing the opposition, and Pakistan, which has no respect to human rights, and the Philippines, which has publicly called for lynching executions to drug lords, are they really less democratic? Facing the questioning, the White House said that those uninvited do not mean that they are undemocratic countries. This explanation shows that even the definition of democracy of Mr. Biden’s Summit for Democracy is difficult to convince people.
Rather than saying that the Summit for Democracy is to call on global democratic allies to stop the ebbing of democracy, it is better to say that President Biden wants to use this rally to redefine that the United States still has a dominant position in global strategy. Initiated from a strategic standpoint, and packaged as a summit for democracy, there is little to expect that this Summit could make any practical effect on the promotion of democracy.
Look at the so-called national declarations shared by representatives of various countries on the official website of the U.S. State Department, and listen to them carefully, you will find that many small country leaders’ statements are basically as handing-in homework to teachers, expressing respectfully how they are to cooperate with the United States. Frankly speaking, from the responses of many small countries, what we see is not the democratic value that countries can fully express their opinions, but the dominance of the United States. The United States’ subjective determining of whether the allies are democratic or not may be a recognition to some part of the countries, but can it really convince the world?
The Summit for Democracy of the Biden administration has not only caused opponents to question the purpose of the United States, but also caused the world to pay more attention to examine how good American democracy is. Judging from the ranking of American democracy by Freedom House, the United States is only ranked 60th in the ranking of democratization indicators. That’s correct. It’s not the first, not the second, or even within the top fifties. Recently the Stockholm's Global Democracy and Election Research Project has also listed the United States as a democracy in retrogression. American democracy faces a situation of extreme polarization between political parties, and even the experienced Biden can hardly find a solution.
The conservative camp of the Republican Party in the southern states of the United States, through the control of the state legislature, even rezoning the constituencies and setting high voting thresholds, to influence the exercise of voting rights and ensure that the Republican Party has a better opportunity to win in the future elections. All these are evidence that American democracy is in retrogression. Seeing that American democracy is receding, yet I heard Biden emphasized at the Summit that the United States will lead everyone to safeguard democracy. I wonder how many countries will really be persuaded.