In response to Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Le Yucheng's criticism that the so-called Summit for Democracy that the United States is hosting on the coming Thursday and Friday is intended to divide the world, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said: "That's nothing we're going to apologize for."
It would certainly come as a surprise if it did. The United States never apologizes for anything it does. Certainly not its destructive attempts to graft its "model of democracy" on countries by orchestrating coups or inciting "people's revolutions"; nor has it apologized for its disastrous invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although US President Joe Biden has said "Democracy doesn't happen by accident, we have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it"－and the US State Department has made that the catchphrase to promote the summit－the US pursues democracy by design in countries where it wants more amenable regimes.
The US attributed the end of the Cold War to the victory of "US-style democracy", which prompted some to hail it as the end of history.
But not only has "American democracy" failed in other countries, it has failed at home. The US is wracked by socioeconomic issues, ranging from racism and the failure to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic to an ever widening wealth gap and the damaging tug-of-war of partisan politics. The divisions in US society culminated in the storming of Capitol Hill in January this year by some wanting to overturn the US presidential election result.
The US is not in a position to set tests and standards on what democracy is, nor does it have the right to demand others to emulate its model of democracy. Rather than being respected and promoted, democracy is being humiliated by the "democracy summit" the US is holding.
The Information Office of the State Council issued a white paper "China: Democracy that Works" on Saturday displaying China's confidence in its own democratic path and process. In stark contrast with the money-talks democracy of the US, China's socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics is a whole-process people's democracy that integrates electoral democracy and consultative democracy.
Democracy is a right of people of all countries, not the preserve of a few. Whether a country is democratic or not should be judged by its people; and whether a country is democratic should be acknowledged by the international community, not arbitrarily decided by a few self-appointed judges.
US democracy has become demo-crazy. The US' attempts to hijack democracy for its own ends should be boycotted by the international community as it seeks to divide the international community with ideological prejudice, and wind the clock back to an era that the world has been glad to say good riddance to.