中文
By Hamzah Rifaat Hussain
The U.S.-led "Summit for Democracy" of 2023, which will be held in coordination with events in the capitals of Costa Rica, South Korea, Zambia and the Netherlands, once again raises questions on whether another American-led forum will renew great power politics instead of provide substantive solutions for the international community. While the summit is slated to cover issues such as the lack of global governance, threats to the democratic system and the absence of across-the-board accountability, expert analysis points at skepticism.
The reasons are obvious. According to Daniel Larison from the Department of History at the University of Chicago, the event constitutes more of a show to divide the world into various camps rather than accomplish anything useful. He said that if the United States truly respects other world democracies which include its partners for the summit, then it must accept the irrefutable fact that countries can adopt opposing views on various international developments. Larison also pointed out that American leaders should not delude themselves into believing that their preferences are shared by all states.
Yet despite this, the Joe Biden administration has opted for a policy of promoting divisions even among its own allies, which is unfortunate. The summit has become polarized as NATO partners Hungary and Türkiye have been excluded from the moot over allegations that both countries are "dismantling their democracies." The Biden administration has chosen to ignore how such snubs can easily be construed from both sides as arbitrary. By further alienating its NATO allies, Washington's transactional and myopic foreign policy has been further exposed to the international community. No lines have been drawn either on who can participate and who cannot in the summit which leads to further doubts about its credibility.
The Biden administration's "democracy vs. autocracy" narrative in the 2023 summit also ignores the important fact that different systems can cater to their citizens by practicing holistic, people-centric and participative democracy which may differ from the American model. This includes a lack of acknowledgment for China's whole-process people's democracy where citizens can vote in the absence of exploitation of the system and where transforming the relevant democratic values into effective institutional arrangements is a reality.
The inflexibility of American foreign policy is also evident. According to Croatian political analyst Davor Gjenero, the 2023 summit will only promote international confrontation and is a "defeat for democracy" given that the American standard of democracy cannot be applied everywhere. It is expected that global divisions which have already become pronounced due to America's adamancy in portraying certain countries negatively are also bound to widen as the summit focuses on scoring diplomatic points rather than bringing states together.
Most experts also believe that U.S. democracy is in crisis with the presence of social divisions, racial polarization and a widening income. By ignoring internal faultiness, however, the U.S. is repeating the same mistakes.
Note that the previous December 2021 "Summit for Democracy" became controversial as 100 partner governments along with the United States touted the American model as an ideal formula to address some of the world's pressing problems despite the fact that the American democratic system perpetuates issues including how a selected elite dominates politics at the expense of the majority.
In the third quarter of 2022, income inequalities worsened while racial sentiments intensified. According to Statista, in the third quarter of 2022, 68 percent of U.S. wealth was owned by the top 10 percent of the population while the lowest 50 percent of earners owned only 3.3 percent of total wealth.
On the racism front, American democracy failed to deliver, with 52 percent of African American adults stating that racism in U.S. laws is a massive problem, according to the Pew Research Center.
Hence, preaching democracy and sowing divisions with such a checkered record does not add up.
As a result, building an alliance of states to pursue narrow geopolitical objectives demonstrates that the 2023 summit will not offer anything substantial. Most UN member states have opted to stay neutral on subjects which pit countries against each other and have opted for constructive solutions to intractable conflicts including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The international community would be better served if consensus building prevails among all states without a discriminatory approach. This can only happen if the U.S. eschews reaching out to countries at the expense of others which have different but effective systems.
Hamzah Rifaat Hussain was a visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. He is also an assistant research associate at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute and specializes in conflict dynamics and foreign relations between countries.
