China adheres to its own path to democracy

At the end of last year, the US launched a "Summit for Democracy", which was widely criticized by the international community. Negative reports about US-style democracy emerged, with many governments, research institutions, experts, and public figures speaking out in condemnation, and some countries rejecting US invitations to participate.

"The track records and reputation of the US, the UK and EU member states in defending the so-called democratic rights and 'freedoms' in their own countries or the international community have been very unsatisfactory." The Russian Foreign Ministry bluntly stated that the United States and its allies cannot and should not claim to be "beacons of democracy" because of their own numerous persistent problems with freedom of expression, electoral systems, corruption, and human rights.

In the The Global State of Democracy 2021 annual report, the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) listed the United States the US as a country of "democratic backsliding". The report said: "The United States...fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale."

A poll released by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University on December 1, 2021, showed that while the US was convening a "Summit for Democracy", 52 percent of young Americans had lost or were losing faith in the US democratic system; 39 percent believed that US democracy was "in trouble"; 13 percent said it was a "failed democracy".

The US convened the so-called "Summit of Democracy" to hide the fact that its domestic governance had failed, to divert domestic conflicts in the name of democracy, and to draw in allies to criticize China's "democratic deficit". Such is typical double standards, a common tactic used by Western countries. For example, Paul Hodgkins, a 38-year-old resident of Florida, was sentenced to eight months in prison for his involvement in the storming of the US Capitol, while Belarus was accused of "trampling on democracy" for detaining those who illegally entered the country's Parliament building.

Perhaps that is why Russians from all walks of life told Sputnik that the values invented and imposed by the West should not be a guide to democracy in China.

Eduard Risovsky, 26, a well-known blogger and advertising agency manager from Moscow, said that no matter how hard the West promotes its values, Chinese people do not believe that "the moon is fuller in foreign countries" because they are seeing the world with sober eyes. "There is a Russian proverb that speaks for itself—"От добра добра не ищут?", which means that you should not look for happiness elsewhere."

Aksana Klimovtsova, an entrepreneur from the Russian city of Belgorod, said that citizens have confidence in their country's political institutions and ideology when the economy is progressing by leaps and bounds and everything is getting significantly better, as is the case in China. She said, "The number of political parties cannot be taken as a sign of democracy. There are countries with dozens of parties without the slightest sign of democracy.

China's path is the choice of the Chinese people and should be respected."
"There is no doubt that the vast majority of Chinese citizens have trust in the Communist Party of China. The reasons are self-explanatory. Everyone sees that their lives are changing." Zaira Bugulova, an ophthalmologist in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, said, "People understand that at the heart of all the positive changes is the Communist Party of China, and people put trust in the Party. The whole world saw the extent of this trust during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a doctor, I can say that it was the residents' absolute implementation of the government's directives that helped China contain the outbreak earlier than other countries."