lpetrich
Contributor
Biden's "Summit for Democracy" includes some countries that hardly seem to qualify. - The Washington Post
It's not clear why some nations were invited and some were not. Jen Psaki: “Inclusion or an invitation is not a stamp of approval on their approach to democracy — nor is exclusion a stamp of the opposite of that, of disapproval.”Pakistan, the State Department warns sharply, has more than a dozen serious human rights problems, from “extrajudicial killings” to “forced disappearance by the government or its agents” to “political prisoners” to “severe restrictions of religious freedom” to “trafficking in persons.”
But on Thursday, Pakistan will join about 110 other countries at a two-day “Summit for Democracy” convened by President Biden, with the goal of rallying the nations of the world against the forces of authoritarianism.
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By the State Department’s own account, the governments of both Pakistan and the Philippines, another invitee, are responsible for “unlawful or arbitrary killings.” Not making the cut are Hungary, a member of the European Union, and Turkey, a NATO ally, both of which have seen their democratic safeguards crumble in recent years.
Trump did indeed like Viktor Orban of Hungary.Some of the excluded countries aren’t buying that, however; leaders of Hungary, for one, complain that they are being penalized for their closeness to former president Donald Trump.
Last week, Hungary, as the only E.U. member left out, tried to block E.U. official Ursula von der Leyen from speaking on behalf of the bloc at the summit. Von der Leyen is speaking regardless, but the E.U.’s formal statement at the event, which requires buy-in from all of its members, will be pared back.
Let's see if anything comes of that.But Trump also spoke positively about Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and the Philippines’s Rodrigo Duterte, both of whom have been invited to the summit — and of Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sissi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have not.
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The three overarching themes of the summit are defending against authoritarianism, addressing and fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights. Attendees are asked to make meaningful commitments to furthering democracy in their countries, with a follow-up summit planned for next year.
Seems like they want the appearance of democracy even if not necessarily its substance.Two other notable, if unsurprising, omissions from the summit are China and Russia. In a November op-ed in the National Interest, the ambassadors to the United States from both countries excoriated the Biden administration, accusing it of a “Cold-War mentality” and warning that the summit “will stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world, creating new ‘dividing lines.’ ”
Like South Korea and Malaysia and Indonesia.The exclusion of China, and the inclusion of Taiwan, has infuriated Beijing, an outcome the Biden administration anticipated. But some Asian allies, worried about how China might view their participation in the summit, are also uneasy.