Biden Democracy Summit Moscow and Beijing make the jump

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday drew the ire of Russia and China, which are not in 110 or more countries and territories invited to his virtual summit for democracy in December.

Also read: Biden invited nearly 110 countries to his Virtual Democracy Summit

“The United States wants to create new dividing lines and divide countries into good, according to them, bad,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a telephone press briefing.

Beijing has expressed its “strong opposition” to Taiwan’s invitation to this virtual summit.

Chinese diplomat Zhao Lijian told the press, “Taiwan, an integral part of China, has no other status in international law.

Around the same time, island officials in the heart of the Beijing-Washington feud thanked the American president for his decision to invite Taiwan.

“Thanks to this summit, Taiwan will be able to share its experience of democratic victory,” Xavier Chang, a spokesman for the presidency, told reporters.

Although the Asian giant does not control the island of 23 million inhabitants, it still considers Taiwan one of its provinces.

In recent weeks, weapons have multiplied over the fate of the territory between Beijing and Washington, which has a democratic system and has its own government, currency and military.

The American president has not hidden it since he came to the White House in January: the struggle between democracies and “authoritarianism”, embodied in his eyes by China and Russia, is at the heart of his foreign policy.

The “Summit for Democracy”, the first edition to take place online on December 9 and 10, a year before the face-to-face meeting, was one of the pillars of this priority.

India is often described as “the greatest democracy in the world” and despite the frequent criticisms by human rights defenders against its Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India remains. Despite its strained relations with Washington, Pakistan remains.

Turkey is Washington’s ally in NATO, but its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, formerly known as “Autocrat” by Joe Biden, is also absent from the participating countries.

In the Middle East, only Israel and Iraq were invited. The traditional Arab allies of the Americans, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates did not attend.

Joe Biden also invited Brazil, led by controversial right-wing president Zaire Bolsonaro.

In Europe, Poland is represented by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, despite repeated tensions with Brussels over the rule of law.

On the Africa side, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Niger are among the invited countries.

“There are good reasons for a wide range of actors to attend the first summit,” Laleh Ispahani from the Open Society Foundation told AFP before the list was published.

For her, it’s not just an anti – China conference – it’s a missed opportunity “- Joe Biden should take advantage of these conferences, which will bring together leaders and civil society to” attack the crisis represented by a sharp decline. Democracy around the world, including relatively solid models such as the United States “.