For US, geopolitical expediency always trumps democracy

US President Joe Biden hosted the "Summit for Democracy" last week so he and some other countries' leaders could talk about how "democratic" and great they are. Like "freedom" and "human rights", we can count "democracy" as another term that's lost its meaning after being trotted out by the country that cares least about it.

Of the 110 supposedly willing participants in the "democracy summit", many are host to US military bases and troops. Indigenous resistance to US military presence is frequently suppressed by these countries' governments, because they depend on US largesse. This inconvenient fact, among others, makes it hard to take the "democracy" charade seriously.

The assassinations of Salvador Allende of Chile and Patrice Lumumba of the Democratic Republic of the Congo show how the US treats elected leaders who dare to espouse an alternate path for their people.

The ouster of leaders, most of them socialists, by the US military-intelligence complex, didn't stop after the end of the Cold War. The US made protracted efforts to overthrow former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who survived a "coup" attempt in 2002, and Bolivia's Evo Morales, who was deposed in a coup in 2019 before returning the following year when his party won back the presidency. These anti-democratic moves were hailed by the same Western media outlets that now purport to be defenders of freedom, democracy and human rights.

Washington's game is not about US-style democracy either. Rather it's about whether a given "democracy" benefits the US economically and/or politically. For the US, geopolitical expediency trumps any commitment to principle.

There's a much deeper issue underpinning US "democracy" and all its contradictions. For example, more than 800,000 people in the US have had almost all their "rights" stripped as their democratically elected government let them die of COVID-19.

What critics of countries like China don't understand is that you can hold an election every day of the year, but they wouldn't mean squat if things didn't improve for the working majority.

China, however, has turned the election system on its head. The Communist Party of China's base of support was forged in an alliance of workers and farmers almost a century ago. Which has ensured the working majority remains the primary focus when crafting policy and allocating resources.

In countries such as the US, the affluent form interest groups to protect and expand their profits. If decisions are made in China or other countries governed by communist parties, social benefits and costs are factored in before anyone considers what the bourgeoisie will think.

There are other aspects of what China calls whole-process democracy that could, and should, be addressed in greater detail. Whole-of-society participation in the political process through oversight, consultation, public review, grassroots governance and many other avenues makes China a far more democratic society than the US and its hangers-on will ever give it credit for.

But that's a topic for another time. For now, I'll leave you with one quote of President Xi Jinping about democracy:

"If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy."

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

The author is a US writer with China Daily.

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