Beijing: China on Thursday accused the US of “weaponising” democracy and attacked the Biden administration’s initiative of the Alliance for the Future of the Internet, saying it is aimed at maintaining America’s cyber hegemony.
US President Joe Biden is hosting the Summit for Democracy from Thursday, bringing together leaders of the governments and civil society and China, where the Communist Party of China has been ruling the country since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, is not among the list of invitees.
China is furious that the US has instead invited Taiwan. The self-ruling island is among 110 invitees to the summit. China claims Taiwan as part of its mainland.
“It proves the US is politicising, instrumentalising and weaponising democracy,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here responding to a question about the US pushing its proposal of the Alliance for the Future of the Internet at the Summit of Democracy to be held on December 9-10.
“Facts show that the so-called Summit for Democracy has nothing to do with global public good for democracy but rather it is about serving the selfish interests of the US and maintaining its US hegemony,” Wang said.
The invitees from the Asia-Pacific region include India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Pakistan, Maldives and the Philippines.
Most European countries are also invited, including Serbia, but not Bosnia and Herzegovina or Hungary.
China has been attacking the summit, saying the US cannot hold a patent for democracy and the event is aimed at dividing the world.
Write-ups in Chinese official media say that the summit is part of a multi-faceted campaign by the US to put China in a negative light.
On Thursday, Wang also targeted the “Alliance for the Future of the Internet”, saying “the so-called alliance for internet pursued by the US is another example of how the US is seeking technological monopoly and cyber hegemony and suppressing technological development of other countries”.
“The US tries to impose its standards to restrict and take away other countries, especially the developing countries’ rights to choose their partners in developing the internet and hinder the enjoyment of digital development and tech progress,” he said.
“The so-called alliance is a new package in the name of democracy. The aim is to form an exclusive clique while claiming to build an open internet. The US is creating confrontation and dividing the internet,” he said.
“It is pushing this alliance in an attempt to plant ideological bias and zero-sum mentality in the supply and industrial information chains of the internet to twist the market and to gain unfair advantages,” he said.
