 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of International Relations Capsule for the Shankar IAS Academy. Today, our topic is the Summit for Democracy, which was hosted by President Biden on the 9th and 10th of December on virtual mode. I had invited about 110 countries and all of them were visible on the screen when President Biden spoke. But if this was, of course, as a conference, it went all right, nothing went wrong. But looking back at it, one gets the feeling that this was not the time for President Biden to have hosted a conference like this. As a result of that, we did not have the same kind of impact that he had expected. Why I say this? Because first of all, his popularity rating has gone down since Afghanistan and opposition by the Republicans has become much stronger in the last few weeks. Not only Trump supporters, but also other Republicans are still maintaining the position that his election was stolen. And that movement, a kind of anti-democratic movement is very much within the United States. So this exercise was seen by many people as an attempt by President Biden not only to recover his prestige abroad, but also to convince his own people that he is a champion of democracy and what the Republicans are doing is not right. And also next year, there will be the by-elections, that is the half-time elections, that is every term there is a mid-term elections for the Congress and the Senate. And that is a tricky one. Nobody knows who will win because they are a very slender majority in the Congress and equal status in the Senate. So there is a fear that the democratic structure in the United States itself is in some kind of uncertainty. So the conference went well, but controversy started as soon as the invitation spent out because it was very difficult to decide as to who the democratic countries in the world are. There is no particularly fixed criterion. And therefore, they did it rather undemocratically, selecting countries which they thought were useful and not entirely in terms of objective criteria. In fact, it's very difficult to establish objective criteria for democracies. Anyway, they selected some 110 countries and there were some peculiarities in it. For example, from South Asia, they invited India, Pakistan and Nepal and not Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. They did not invite Singapore, for example, but invited Philippines. So there were kinds of kind of contradiction there. And therefore, there was the question of the invitation itself. And secondly, the Chinese started a huge campaign against this conference right from the beginning because they normally would have ignored it. If there is a democracy conference, what do they have to do with it? But China decided to meet this aggressively because they felt that this was a way for President Biden to collect his supporters in the name of democracy. And then they thought that would not suit the Chinese interests. So the Chinese started a very systematic campaign even before the conference on the 6th of December or so. They published a white paper of the Communist Party of China explaining great detail that this is a sham because China is also a democracy. How can they say that the United States or these 110 countries are the only democracies in the world? And they claim something that they've never claimed before. They said, we are the biggest democracy in the world. So they were actually challenging India's position. And they said we are 900 million electorates and our leaders are elected and we provide better facilities for our people. An example given was Chinese women are superior to Indian women in development and all kinds of absurd claims to show that this whole exercise of community of democracies is not acceptable. And if so, if it is a community of democracies, China should also be considered a democracy. And so this was a very active campaign and every day they came out with various statements that also distracted and also detracted from the importance of this conference because there's continuous bombarding by China. But anyway, the many countries attended except for Pakistan. Pakistan was invited as a special case because nobody would consider Pakistan a democracy. But because of all times sake, they invited Pakistan. But Pakistan decided not to attack because they wanted to express solidarity for China and Russia who were excluded. Russia did not make any claims but China continued to make these claims. And after the conference, they said that democracy for the United States is a weapon of mass destruction. And they said that this is something which they are using as a strategic tool. And actually democracy should be a kind of ideal for which the whole world is aspiring. And it should not be claimed by somebody to propagate their own ideas. In fact, there is some truth in this because it is very difficult to define a democracy in plain words. Parliamentary democracies are considered democracies but there are also other systems and all systems were accepted generally. Even India, we do not discriminate between democracies and others when we deal with the countries. The normal moment was full of dictators. And the United States of course had championed and supported and funded many undemocratic countries. You must have heard that famous statement by President Regan once because he was told about a particular dictator in Latin America saying that he is a son of a bitch. Somebody told him and you know Regan said but he is our son of a bitch. That is as long as he serves American interests it doesn't matter what his characters are. So that was the kind of approach that United States had adopted in the past. They have changed regimes, democratic regimes have been changed. Arab Spring was encouraged. So United States does not have really the credentials to become the leader of the so-called democratic world. And that is why it did not have much credibility. And of course there were other issues of what Freedom House has been doing. They have considered America as a fully free democracy while India is partly free democracy and some others. And this whole exercise of the Freedom House making these calculations and categorizing countries is funded by the United States government. Ninety-three percent I believe of the funding for Freedom House comes from US government. And therefore all these complications were there. inaugurating the conference President Biden defined the objectives of this exercise. So he called it a forum of leaders from around the world to discuss challenges and opportunities facing democracies. That was his description of the whole conference. And he spelt out some areas like bolstering democracy and defend human rights globally by understanding by undertaking programs and initiatives. That is instead of giving an action plan to the conference President Biden announced an action plan for the United States itself in the future. And what were these? Supply, support, free and independent media anywhere in the world, then fighting corruption, then bolstering democratic reformers. Those who are reformers for democracy they are willing to support them. Then advancing technology for democracy. And even rapid response programs to support partners in democracy who are fighting for democracy anywhere in the world. So considerable amount of interference in the internal affairs of states was also envisaged. And then of course he allowed some funding for it. Some $432 million or so for this program. Because that's a very small amount compared to what China is spending on the Belt and Road Initiative, billions of dollars. So what is $432 to win friends among democracies? Not very significant. And you must also remember that this is not the first time that the United States had tried a kind of grouping of democracies. When I was in Washington in 1998-99, a similar effort was made by at that time the Secretary of State, Albright. And a number of meetings, preparatory meetings were held. And I represented India because we were one of the partners. But it was within the framework of the United Nations and it went up to a conference in South Korea. And then it fizzled out. Did not have much enthusiasm from other countries. But a large number of NGOs, et cetera, started setting up democracy concave and democracy groups and so on. But the United States championship of it kind of without a way. So the actions proposed by President Clinton and funding for it seemed like the same exercise as for climate change. You know that climate change, the latest approach is to ask every country to declare a particular year as net free emissions years and then work for it. Some funding will be provided and then they'll monitor the results. So a similar formula is being applied in the case of democracies also. And this is not considered very desirable because it is very difficult to measure the success of democracy and fund them accordingly. So this is not being accepted very much by the by the participants. So in a way, the idea that democracy should be promoted as a kind of conversion from other systems to democracy to be encouraged from different parts of the world by the United States initiative was not considered very, very desirable from very many points of view. So this is very true that democracy is an ideal and they should follow basically their own democratic structures and show by example that they are working. And that would be a better idea than approaching it from the formula of climate change that is setting targets and so on. This is not practical at all. Then there are different kinds of democracies in various parts of the world. You cannot really measure it by any of the definitions, whether it is a definition by Abraham Lincoln or definition by Revit Nathal Tagore and many other thinkers, philosophers of all defined democracies. But you cannot say that a particular democracy is specifically suited for developing countries or other countries also. So this was the point that China made repeatedly that for large developing countries, the Chinese system may be of more effectiveness than any open democratic system. So there was also the problem about Taiwan being invited and that naturally offended the Chinese and they even said that China advocating democracy is like a morality lecture given by the head of a house of ill repute. And so this was very hypocritical China kept arguing and they got some amount of support from the rest of the world. And China also said that this is meant to defend US hegemony, which is the most undemocratic act. And they said that democracy has deficits in the United States and it has what they call the democratic malaise in the US. And some criticism was addressed against India also in this process because the Chinese saw this as some kind of a conspiracy between United States and India. So they talked about India was a chaotic system, inefficient system and therefore no propaganda by the US or India will remove the reputation that India has for lack of efficiency and lack of order and form. And as I said, they even concluded by saying this was a weapon of mass destruction. Our Prime Minister spoke briefly in the virtual format. He participated twice, one in a formal chat and another in a formal statement. And I think he welcomed this opportunity to answer some questions about the increasing criticism in Western countries against Indian democracy. So he used for that purpose and he was very clear in saying that no particular form of democracy can be educated for every country. So he said, for example, different parts of the world have followed different parts of democratic development. There is much we can learn from each other. We all need to certainly improve our democratic practice and systems and we all need to continuously enhance inclusion, transparency, human dignity, responsive grievance, reversal mechanism and decentralization of power. So in other words, he defined what democracy is from his own perspective and from India's perspective that is inclusiveness, transparency, human dignity, responsive grievance, reversal and decentralization of power. And in fact, Mr Modi even amended the Abraham Lincoln's definition of democracy. Abraham Lincoln had said that democracy is of the people, by the people, for the people, we all know. But Prime Minister Modi added, but also with the people and within the people. So in a sense, he amended the definition of democracy widely accepted and he also offered to share India's expertise on free and fair elections. And this is a hint at the inability of the United States itself to hold free and fair elections because every time there is an election in the United States, there is always a challenge and there have been occasions when the Supreme Court decided who the winner was, not the voting structure. And in the latest elections, even today it has not been accepted by the Republicans, not just the Trump supporters, but generally the Republicans still feel that this election was stolen by Biden. So he did not say all that, but he said that there are various forms and India is willing to share our expertise in holding elections free and fair. And an additional point that Prime Minister Modi made was, a democracy should shape global norms in modern technology like social media and cryptocurrency, adding a kind of contemporary touch to democracy. So he did not endorse President Biden's action plan specifically, nor did he oppose, but he placed his own case before the conference and also put forward his own idea as to what democracy should be. Of course, the reason for his caution is very clear because there are many dangers of prescribing a certain version of democracy and linking that to the promotion of human rights and that is what President Biden had done and therefore the setting targets, funding them and monitoring them by the climate change model causes some concern. And that concern he expressed not openly but in a gentle manner. So one or two disadvantages was that one, China's campaign affected or raised questions seriously of the value of this and therefore it has only deep intentions between United States and China as a result of this conference because they're talking about cooperation, they're talking about confrontation at the same time. So this instead of becoming a cooperative effort, it became a kind of confrontation effort that was the one disadvantage. And then one of United States old friends, Pakistan, abandoned them in this quest for democracy because they claim that there are different kind of democracy and they would rather support Russia and China rather than join the United States. So these are the kinds of negative followers. Apart from the first point that I made about the internal problems, domestic problems and so now this year it was a virtual conference and prior President Biden has already said that there would be a face-to-face conference next year, a summit for democracy. This we have to see whether it will be followed up because next year there will be the elections, midterm elections and if the Republicans get a majority and so on it may be difficult for them to hold this conference or continue with it and he himself may have different opinions by the time next year comes. So on the whole it was held and Americans made their points and others made their points and there was really no outcome as it were, which would commit everybody to various things that they should do as a democracy. Because our lists were produced of commitments, for example the Brookings Institution produced 10 commitments about democracies should undertake, but I did not see any reference to that in any of the official documents. But these are also rather stern commitments to support various aspects of the democratic structure as the Americans see it. So this is basically what happened and on the whole one can say as I said in my article in the read if today saying that the summit for democracy has failed to impress. I do not want to use any stronger statement but definitely it did not serve the purpose. It may have done more harm than good to the United States. Thank you. That means phantom is an imaginary being, so that means not real. Phantom means unreal, but I don't know who. China is often termed as phantom democracy, okay. Anyway, but the Chinese are now claiming that they are real democracy, not only real democracy, but also the largest democracy. They are challenging even our position. So this must be somebody's personal moment. Of course everybody knows that Chinese democracy is not democracy in that sense. Elections are held, but dissent is not tolerated. The major element democracy and humanitarian democracy is that there is tolerance. So here there used to be a joke about Soviet Union. They used to say that people can vote against the party's candidates. They are free to vote against the party's candidates, but to do that you have to go to a separate booth. So those who are voting for the party's candidates can vote in a particular booth. And those who want to vote against the parties have to enter another booth. And then they say that that's a one-way booth. After that they don't come back. So they say that from there they go straight to Siberia. So that was a kind of joke we had about Soviet Union in the old days. So that system I heard in China, but the system is certainly not democratic. It is a meritocracy. They select people on the basis of the service that they have rendered to the party. And people are selected right from the lowest levels and they go through the screening process of the party throughout and they become leaders for 10 years and then retire. But now they have also violated that principle and Xi Jinping is going to continue even into a third term. Well, such kind of things we can say in India because India is still a democracy. So any opinion can be expressed and that is why we hear all these opinions and it's all left to these people who say it to justify it because it is difficult to examine the claims and say one way or the other. The Prime Minister has replied to that in a sense by saying that every country should have the democracy suitable for its genius. Yes, obviously. It was a selection process. Well, I don't know what harm it would have done if they had invited everybody. So or at least those who have an electoral system like Sri Lanka, for example, but they did not find it convenient to do so. And also it was a kind of signal that the United States invites them as a democracy. There could be some implication of recognition of these countries as democratic countries. That's probably what they wanted to avoid, but not inviting Singapore while they invite Philippines looked like a bit of a contradiction. Well, you can write anything in exams. Exams are not meant to be supportive of the government. As long as you have a strong point, you should not hesitate in mentioning it, but it may not help because the examiner may have a different view and so he meant his counter marks. But there is no harm in expressing any view that you are convinced about. But this partly democracy judgment is not done in India. It was done in the United States. It was the Freedom House, which calls it partly democracy because they say that there is some suppression of dissent, journalism, etc. So it's a subjective judgment. So it's up to you to decide whether you want to say it in exams. You will not be penalized for expressing a view which does not support the government. I think that you must have been told many times. And if you feel strongly about a particular point, you should not hesitate to express it either in your vector papers or in your interviews. But there is a certain element of risk involved. What you want is to get selected, not to make a strong point of view. Well, that's again your view. But for them, it was difficult to attend because China and Russia were not united, because they are now becoming in the context of Afghanistan. Some kind of like-minded group, Russia, China and Pakistan seem to share the same opinion about the current situation in Afghanistan. And in that context, at that limited context, they decided to keep out of it because this was meant to be, in the popular perspective, it was meant to be something that President Biden did in order to recover his reputation after Afghanistan. Well, it depends on how you want to take it. We have not expressed any deep disappointment about what freedom also said. Well, that is their way of looking at it. And we have another perspective. And the basic thing about democracy is that a party which has the majority runs the country. And as long as it has the support of the people, till the next elections, we have to accept that. And you always have a way to change governments. And that is the element of democracy. So if a government does not perform in the first five years, then it doesn't get another term. And we have seen it in the history of India, so many, so many cases. All right. Thank you very much.