The “Copenhagen Democracy Summit 2021” was held May 10 and 11 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The organizers of the conference said the world needs American leadership. Participants expressed optimism about the resilience of American democracy and the battle between democracy and tyranny. At the summit, China was seen as the “greatest threat” to global democracy.
“Democracy Summit Calls for U.S. Leadership
The Democracy Summit, hosted by the Danish Democracy Coalition, is in its fourth year. We need American global leadership,” said former NATO Secretary General and former Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen, convener of the summit and founder of the Democracy Coalition. We need strong American global leadership because history shows that when Americans retreat, they leave a vacuum, and the bad guys fill it. That’s why recent years have seen the gradual advance of authoritarian rulers and dictators. We need American global leadership to build this global coalition of democracies.”
The Biden administration has put democracy and human rights at the center of its foreign policy since taking office. Later this year, Biden will hold his first global democracy summit. The Copenhagen Democracy Summit plans to help set the agenda for President Biden’s democracy summit by combining new thinking from political, business and media leaders, democracy activists and advocates “to stem the advance of the authoritarian tide and restore the march of democracy.”
Notably, Biden attended the 2018 Democracy Summit in Copenhagen and delivered a speech titled “Democracy is about Freedom.”
“Communist China is the greatest threat to global democracy.”
The summit featured Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong activist Lo Koon-chung, who is in exile in the United Kingdom, among others. In a video address at the summit, Tsai called for global cooperation to defend democratic values that are increasingly being eroded by the expansion of authoritarian regimes.
Law said that Hong Kong is feeling the effects of the implementation of national security laws. Hong Kong’s democratic institutions are being comprehensively suppressed. “People are no longer chanting slogans, and political activists are either in jail, on trial, or in exile. Hong Kong has become just another city under the Chinese Communist dictatorship.”
Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod delivered a keynote speech on “Defending Democracy as a Core Value” at the Democracy Summit on Monday. He denounced China’s recent sanctions against the European Union as “egregious” and hinted at a stronger response to China’s actions.
China was angered by the invitation of Tsai Ing-wen and Luo Guan-cong to the democracy summit. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on May 11 that the Copenhagen democracy summit was full of ideological bias and “an uncompromising political farce.
She also accused the event organizer, the Democracy Coalition, of maliciously spreading lies and false information about China and undermining China’s sovereignty and rights. “The Democracy Coalition was sanctioned by China in March this year.
Speaking at the Democracy Summit, H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser to President Trump, said China is the greatest threat to global democracy.
The problem we face, the problem the whole world faces, is that China is pushing its authoritarian and mercantilist development model,” he said. The Chinese Communist Party is not only suppressing human freedom within China, carrying out a slow genocide in Xinjiang and extending the party’s repressive apparatus to Hong Kong. They also use hostages to advance their own interests, with the capture of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig Michael Spavor and others. The use of Western technology to perfect the police state. The absolute absence of the rule of law. What worries us all most is that the Chinese Communist Party is actively exporting its own model.”
He said the West must understand that if the CCP succeeds, then the globe will become less free, less secure, and less prosperous.
Xi Jinping is the biggest driver for democracies to unite
McMaster added, however, that Xi Jinping, the Communist Party’s general secretary, is now helping democracies win the cause of dictatorship. He said it is because of Xi’s actions that democracies around the world have been able to unite. He said, “Xi Jinping is the greatest force in promoting the unity of democracies around the globe.”
McMaster said that when Chinese troops killed Indian soldiers on the border between the two countries in the Himalayas, when the Chinese rammed Vietnamese fishing boats in the South China Sea, when China carried out massive island reclamation in the South China Sea, when China imposed economic coercion on Australia, when China made repeated threats against Taiwan, carried out massive cyber attacks on the United States and controlled the export of medical equipment in the event of an epidemic, when the Senkaku Islands (what China calls the Diaoyu Islands) to Japan, and when China engaged in insulting “war wolf diplomacy” against other countries, all of which made the world realize, “This is not a U.S.-China problem, it’s a global problem.”
As a result of China’s aggressive approach described above, many countries from Asia, to Europe, to Australia, have resisted and “topped back” at China. In Asia, the Quadripartite Security Dialogue (QUAD) has been strengthened and upgraded, and in Europe, the Group of Seven (G7) has just condemned China. At the Democracy Summit, participants called for the creation of a scientific and technological alliance of democracies to defend against China’s access to advanced 21st century technology.
It’s a hopeful time for democracies to wake up
Activists and politicians from countries such as Burma, Belarus and Venezuela also attended Monday’s Democracy Summit. Democracy is also under threat in these countries and regions.
Fritz Mayer, director of the School of International Studies at the University of Denver, believes it is a hopeful and encouraging moment for democracies to be awakening, despite the very urgent threats to democracy around the world, particularly the growing presence of China and the erosion of democratic institutions.
We are no longer as complacent as we once were,” he said. This issue is also mentioned many times today. We used to think that all we had to do was grow the economy and democracy would follow. We are no longer complacent. You can’t solve a problem unless you are aware of it. We see the problem, and more and more people are forming a consensus. We are seeing an awakening on multiple levels and a willingness to solve the problem. On a global scale, building a coalition of democracies, uniting the world’s democracies through this forum or the Biden Forum. Today, many have highlighted the need for democracies to come together to strengthen their democratic position and address a range of issues. This is something that is full of hope.
The efforts of people in countries where democracy has suffered erosion also give hope, he said.
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