Democracy summit: China, US ‘at war’

China sees summit as a challenge to its authoritarian ways while White House Press Secretary Psaki says it will stand up for world democracy

Beijing: China and the United States are in a tussle over President Joe Biden’s upcoming democracy summit, which the ruling Communist Party sees as a challenge to its authoritarian ways.

The party maintains China has its own form of democracy and plans to issue a report titled “China: Democracy that Works” on Saturday, five days before the opening of Biden’s two-day virtual meeting with about 110 other governments.

The White House pushed back Thursday against Chinese criticism of Biden’s “Summit for Democracy,” after a senior Chinese official said that it divides countries and points fingers at others. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the participants would discuss how to work together to stand up for democracy around the world.

“That’s nothing we’re going to apologize for,” she said.

She was responding to opening remarks by Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng at an expert forum on the topic held by the government for foreign journalists in Beijing.

“It claims it’s doing this for democracy,” Le said, without naming the United States. “But this is in fact the very opposite of democracy. It will do no good to global solidarity, no good to cooperation and no good to development.” -(AP)