‘Summit of Hypocrisy’ Is a Divisive Venture That Is the Proverbial Lead Balloon

March 29, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—China’s Global Times fittingly denounced March 29 the platitudinous, hypocritical, and bone-chillingly boring “Summit for Democracy” of President Biden for feeding divisiveness. “No matter how many fancy words the Biden administration has used to boost the summit, this event, like the first one held in 2021, has been used by the Biden administration as a tool to reaffirm the U.S.’ leadership in so-called democracy and human rights. Its ambition to pull more countries into its interest camp to contain its rivals, especially China and Russia, has been interwoven into the agenda of the event and is too obvious to hide.”

The low-point of the conference—and this was a hotly contested category—was President Biden’s keynote to the conference plenary session. He put forth such pearls of wisdom as, “And today we can say with pride that the democracies of the world are getting stronger, not weaker. Autocracies of the world are getting weaker, not stronger.” We will spare the reader other messages of genius.

What is of more interest is that those who are supposed to be Biden’s ideological compatriots openly took offense and attacked the summit. Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations tweeted, “The summit for democracy is a bad idea that wont [sic] go away. Beyond the awkward ‘whom to invite’ issue, American democracy is hardly a model for others.”

In an op-ed in the Financial Times, U.S. National Editor Edward Luce also makes deep jabs at the event. Contrary to Biden’s assertions of democracies getting stronger, Luce cites a report from “V-Dem” which claims nearly 75% of the world now lives under “autocracies,” compared to less than 50% a decade ago. In the case of the Middle East, the U.S. success rate has been “almost uniformly negative,” and the only recent “convert” was Tunisia, which then suffered a coup in 2021 (and was subsequently not invited to the first summit).

The op-ed concludes by saying that the Global South’s consistent demands have been for increased investment, which is something that China has delivered on more “than all the West combined.” Therefore: “The best way of nudging them down that path is to lecture less and listen more.”

Of particular irony was the address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (whose name was concealed from the program until the last minute)—who is currently attempting an excessive power grab from the judicial branch, sparking possibly the largest protests in Israel’s history.