Research and Opinion

Experts: US far from being a model for democracy

chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2022-11-09 11:54

The midterm elections in the United States on Tuesday have been reduced to being a charade thanks to bipartisan wrestling. It also ridicules the US move to play a global moral cop while launching tirades against China's democracy.

Three experts shared their views on the two countries' democracy models with China Daily.

Mark Pinkstone, former chief information officer of the Hong Kong government, said democracy in China means the power of the people while in the US it is a chaotic power game played by a club of rich people.

Pinkstone pointed out that the US administration raises morality issues elsewhere while its own people are plagued by drug abuse and mass shooting problems.

Mario Cavolo, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said that in his 24-year stay in China he has noticed how the country cares about its people's well-being and voice, and that US democracy is not as bright as it claims to be.

Jasna Plevnik, president of the Geoeconomic Forum Croatia, said it is essentially anti-democratic of the US to form cliques against China while China has never indulged in creating groupings leading to confrontations. According to Plevnik, the anti-China "democracy" campaign will lead to nowhere but only damage regional and global stability.

 “The USA many times has stated that it is not looking for conflict with China,  a cold war or to change China's political system, nor to stop China's economic growth. But there are so many controversies regarding these claims. 

Last five years Washington has been taking different kinds of propaganda steps and sanctions to undermine The Chinese political system, and the leadership of the Communist Party and hurt the country's trade and technology development.

Now, the USA is presenting  China to its allies as a threat to the Western-led system of free trade, and rule of law and working on the grouping of democratic forces against China. That diplomacy is essentially anti-democratic and a passport to the heart of regional and global instability.

Nobody can tilt both ways at the same time

The USA wants to have simultaneously  good and bad relations with China, but we know  that nobody can tilt both ways at the same time. It has a problem treating China as equal and that poses a big challenge to their relations and global stability. 

China’s basic approach to the USA is democratic. Beijing does not seek a new cold war, or an end to economic globalization and Western neoliberalism nor classifies the US as a systemic rival just as a market competitor. China has not been working with other international groups to build up an anti-America world order.

We don’t know how long the USA's campaign against China’s political system will last but it cannot change the fact that the most important bilateral relationships in the world are those between China and America.

Both powers have a moral duty to change the world for the better and to do that have to coexist and cooperate.  

Looking from a long-term perspective America and China will improve their relationship. There is no other way,” Dr. Jasna Plevnik said.

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