US reporter Marieke de Vries:
Biden actually announced this Summit for Democracy last March during his first press conference as president. It remained a spearhead in his foreign policy throughout the year. Biden sees the struggle between democracies and authoritarian regimes as a challenge for our time. He literally said: “I am prophesying that our children and grandchildren will later graduate over what triumphed: tyranny or democracy? Because that is at stake.”
Russia and China see this summit as reckless. Over the past year, American democracy has also taken a hit: with a former president refusing to accept election results, the storming of the Capitol and election laws in many states being changed to make voting more difficult for certain demographic groups. .
In a year like this, the US would prefer to be more modest, Russian and Chinese state media say. By doing so, they are also trying to divert attention from the content discussed at the summit and thus rotate their alternative vision of the concept of democracy.
Last weekend, China already held its own “Democracy Forum” with 120 international politicians and scholars, where it was said that “China’s one-party system as a democracy” works better than American democracy.
