China says US using democracy as 'weapon of mass destruction' to meddle in other countries
Before the conference, China increased its media blitz criticizing US democracy as corrupt and failing.
FollowChina called US democracy a "weapon of mass devastation," following the US-organized Summit for Democracy on Saturday, which attempted to rally like-minded friends in the face of despotic governments. Along with Russia and Hungary, China was left out of the two-day virtual summit and responded strongly by accusing US President Joe Biden of fostering Cold War-era ideological differences. A foreign ministry official stated in an online post that democracy has long become a "weapon of mass destruction" used by the US to meddle in other countries, accusing the US of encouraging "colour revolutions" throughout the world. The ministry also stated that the US organized the conference to "draw ideological lines, instrumentalize and weaponize democracy... (and) promote discord and hostility."
Beijing, on the other hand, has vowed to "resolutely reject and resist all sorts of pseudo-democracies." Before the conference, China increased its media blitz criticizing US democracy as corrupt and failing. Instead, in a white paper issued last week to shore up legitimacy for the governing Communist Party, which has become increasingly authoritarian under President Xi Jinping, it praised its brand of "whole-process people's democracy."
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While the United States has consistently denied that a new Cold War with China is on the horizon, tensions between the world's two largest economies have risen in recent years over topics such as trade and technical rivalry, human rights, Xinjiang, and Taiwan. The US Treasury sanctioned two high-level Chinese officials on Friday for human rights violations in Xinjiang and placed Chinese AI surveillance startup SenseTime on a blacklist for its face recognition technology targeting the Uyghur minority. Taiwan, a democratically self-governing island claimed by China, was invited to the US summit, directly insulting its more prominent neighbour.
But, in the middle of Biden's summit, Nicaragua withdrew its prior diplomatic partnership with Taiwan, declaring that it only recognized China. With the declaration, Taiwan now has only 14 diplomatic allies. In response, the US State Department urged "any countries that value democratic institutions" to "expand contact" with the island.
