US 'summit' branded by its base contempt for democracy: China Daily editorial

The "Summit for Democracy" that the United States hosted on Thursday and Friday unfolded exactly as expected. Being staged purely for the purpose of dividing the world and attacking China, it was a farce from start to finish.

Providing representatives of the secessionist-minded Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan island with a platform to issue a so-called state declaration, inviting a Hong Kong rioter to speak, and accusing Chinese entities and individuals of unfounded wrongdoing and putting them on a blacklist on Friday, Human Rights Day, expose the summit for what it was, a contrived publicity stunt to blacken China's image in the name of democracy and human rights.

As a country that feels no qualms about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries or practicing long-arm jurisdictions so it can divide the world for its own narrow ends, the US is not qualified to lecture the world on values.

Although it claims to be championing democracy and human rights, it is the US that is the true "authoritarian force".

All of the US' anti-China tricks, whether conducted in the open for all the world to see or in an underhand way, only serve to consolidate China's resolve to defend its core interests as well as sovereignty and territorial integrity.

It has been nearly one month since the top leaders of China and the United States held a virtual meeting, in which they agreed on the importance of Sino-US relations and the need to avoid miscalculation and a new Cold War. Although the Chinese side has fully demonstrated its patience, foresight and practicality in acting accordingly, the US has not honored its words.

The US should discard the fantasy that it can compel China to follow its rules. China only accepts the international system with the United Nations as the core, and the international order with international laws as its foundation.

The US democracy is fundamentally the institutional exploitation of the majority by the few: that is how it views the world and how it has shaped the global governance system. The US' strategic anxiety about China's rise originates from its fear that the fairer and more equitable international order China calls for as a representative of the less-developed countries will put an end to its privilege and hegemony, which it has taken for granted after emerging from the Cold War as the sole superpower.

That being said, the US-orchestrated "summit" was a travesty of democracy. It was simply a tired hurrah for an enervated monarch refusing to accept his decline.