Radhika Desai/Jin Yu (Trans.): The Imperialism of Democracy and Human Rights and the Democracy and Human Rights of Imperialism
The hardline rhetoric of the West toward China has persisted for a long time. In essence, this is because the United States leadership has gradually come to realize that their previous assumption—that strengthening trade and engagement with China would lead it to mimic and establish a Western neoliberal financialized capitalist system—has now failed: China continues to adhere to the path of socialism. Former U.S. President George W. Bush and then-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke attempted to blame the 2008 financial crisis on China and Chinese savings; in reality, however, it was capital from Europe that fed the subprime credit and real estate bubbles in the U.S. Thus, this financial crisis was less a global crisis than a North Atlantic financial crisis. In 2011, former U.S. President Obama implemented the "Pivot to Asia" policy. Ultimately, the intensity of the contradictions between China and the U.S. reached a peak when former U.S. President Trump announced a "New Cold War" policy toward China. At that time, as the pandemic raged, China's performance in the fields of public health and the economy left nowhere for the United States’ chaotic anti-pandemic response and sharp economic decline to hide.
Although current U.S. President Biden campaigned against Trump, his first year in office demonstrated that he has continued, rather than interrupted, the policies of the Trump administration, whether on issues of the economy, foreign policy, climate change, immigration, or racial justice. Indeed, Biden, as much as or even more than Trump, actively pursues the U.S. New Cold War against China, merely with different rhetoric. Biden abandoned Trump’s "America First" stance and returned to a traditional and hypocritical imperialist position, pretending that everything is for the good of the world, while in reality seeking to dominate, oppress, and exploit other countries, or destroy them if his goals cannot be met. Therefore, he has once again placed his bets on human rights and democracy. At a time when Western countries are deeply plagued by inequality, poverty, distrust, social fragmentation, and political discontent and polarization—and when the anti-democratic intentions of U.S. imperialism are becoming increasingly visible—this position can only face intensifying contradictions of various kinds. This article intends to explore these contradictions.
I. Imperialism, Human Rights, and Democracy
At the 47th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, but in reality much earlier in the "court" of Western public opinion—which increasingly resembles a kangaroo court—the United States, with the assistance of its Western allies, primarily Canada, once again repeated the accusation that China is committing "genocide" against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. In the absence of any evidence, they claimed to speak on behalf of some 44 Western countries, allies, and client states [1] (though Ukraine later withdrew) to oppose the objections raised against this accusation by 65 countries in the UN Human Rights Council.
These accusations are part of the Western discourse of "human rights imperialism"—imposing centuries-long economic and political dominance over Third World countries in the name of promoting human rights within them. For a long time, Western countries have justified their imperialism—whether through direct colonialism or indirect political dominance over the ruling strata of Third World countries—through hypocritical discourse. In the 19th century, they openly preached racism, speaking of the "white man's burden" and its mission to civilize the rest of the world. In the mid-20th century, amidst a magnificent "revolt against the West" [2], decolonization became inevitable and racism became intolerable due to the growing resistance of communism and nationalism against imperialism. Now, the most favored discourse is "development." Western countries attempt to attract Third World countries with the promise (which, of course, remains far removed from reality) of not only material prosperity but even "catching up" to and surpassing Western standards of living. However, by the end of the Cold War, Western capitalism had already begun its economic decline under the reign of neoliberalism. Now, they are too weak and too predatory even to provide modest development for the Third World. Since then, their discourse has shifted to the non-material realm of democracy and human rights.
There are at least two problems with this. Internally, because neoliberalism has undermined the productive economy and financialized it, the social compromise between the working class and the capitalist ruling class that emerged during the "Golden Age" of capitalism and liberal democracy after World War II is gone and will not return. The West boasts of its long "democratic tradition," yet universal adult suffrage was largely achieved only after World War II, and the appearance of "real democracy" that Western democracies took pride in during the post-war decades depended on that social compromise between labor and capital. What has vanished along with this social compromise is the stability of the liberal democratic system. Unable to obtain substantive mass consent through material concessions, liberal democratic states have become increasingly hollowed out over the past decade. Entering the 21st century, few countries can deny the "hollowing out of Western democracy," not only in the capitalist countries of the Third World but also in the core countries of imperialist liberal democracy. Western governments in the neoliberal era have become increasingly parsimonious and harsh, failing to provide basic material security to the people, let alone affluence; instead, they merely engage in comprehensive suppression, as demonstrated by the "Black Lives Matter" movement in the U.S. or the "Idle No More" [3] movement of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Internationally, also due to neoliberalism, Western imperial power is waning. Rather than fulfilling its promise to revive the productive vitality of capitalism, neoliberalism has left the productive economy in a state of collapse and encouraged predatory, speculative financialization to advance by leaps and bounds across all industries. Even if the empire once provided a modest amount of material benefit to countries to keep them within its camp, this has now been replaced by a set of increasingly greedy and predatory relationships. This necessarily requires that client governments subordinated to the West remain in power, whether in the European periphery or the Third World, despite these governments having almost no legitimacy. While claiming to promote democracy and human rights, Western imperialism engages in "color revolutions" and the demonization of genuine popular forces. Of course, this strategy will not succeed forever. As more and more countries leave the imperialist camp, the imperialist discourse on democracy and human rights increasingly fails to align with the actual conditions of domestic democracy and human rights within the imperialist powers themselves.
Therefore, both domestically and internationally, it is becoming increasingly impossible for Western countries to conceal the fact that, far from being paragons of democracy and human rights, the imperialist Western nations are the world's primary violators of democracy and human rights.
II. The Decline of Western Liberal Democracy
During the U.S. presidential campaign, Biden proposed the establishment of a "League of Democracies" [4] among the United States and its allies to counter those countries regarded more or less as "autocracies," with the primary target certainly being China. Although his election sparked hopes that he would halt Trump's New Cold War against China, it soon became clear that Biden is waging this war with the same or even greater enthusiasm, merely employing slightly different means. While he has similarly continued the trade and tech wars that marked the Trump era, he has shifted the rhetoric of his New Cold War from "America First" to the lofty realm of democracy and human rights. He clearly hopes this will attract allies to support what is already a weak and futile effort, while weaponizing democracy in a new way. It will no longer merely serve as an excuse for economic coercion and overseas military operations, but will also defend domestic democracy—making opposition to so-called "Russian interference" and "Chinese propaganda" a matter of national security. The military-industrial complex, and particularly U.S. information/disinformation technology companies, can expect profitable government contracts.
The timing of this idea could not be better. The fate of American democracy, which has been on a downward slide for decades, has now reached a new low, as demonstrated by the "Black Lives Matter" protests in the summer of 2020 and the ignominious 2020 U.S. election, with its questioning of election results and the occupation of Capitol Hill. Small wonder we read in the New York Times that many in the Biden administration would prefer to hold a summit for democracy at home—focusing on U.S. injustice and inequality, including issues like voting rights and disinformation.
The decay of American democracy is easy to summarize. Abraham Lincoln’s famous definition of democracy was "of the people, by the people, and for the people." According to these three criteria, how does American democracy perform?
Is American democracy "of the people"? An obscenely wealthy elite dominates America's elected institutions. Most current members of Congress are millionaires, led by the wealthiest among them. Given the fortunes of many long-serving members, serving in Congress is a lucrative endeavor. No wonder Americans' discontent with the U.S. political establishment boiled over, sending Trump to the White House.
Congress may have become more reflective of social diversity, with more women and non-white members. However, it is far from truly representing the American electorate; the women and non-white members within it come from the same wealthy elite. Such a political class is only likely to practice plutocracy, not democracy.
American democracy is "of the people" only in a sense of dark irony; it is the rule of a wealthy, stingy, and punitive elite over ordinary people. The policies of the ruling class have created a financialized rentier economy that benefits the tiny elite they serve—the "1%" cited by the "Occupy Wall Street" movement—in exchange for the privilege of being the "10%." Everyone else suffers from stagnant wages, increasingly precarious and scarce employment, deteriorating public services, slashed public education, and bleak prospects... the list is long. Inevitable social aberrations and protests are met with repression by a militarized police force armed to the teeth.
Is American democracy based on being "by the people"? Universal adult suffrage may exist, but it is a recent development and remains unstable. The U.S. Jim Crow laws denied African Americans in the South formal voting rights until 1965, and they did not obtain truly effective voting rights until the 1970s—the very years when the U.S. was the leader of the "Free World." Since then, neoliberal policies have created and consolidated new class divisions marked by racial distinctions, maintained by pervasive voter apathy and voter suppression.
Furthermore, these formal democratic arrangements tell us almost nothing about how U.S. elections actually function. They employ a toxic combination of polling, advertising, and media that distorts the truth to an incredible degree. Campaign finance rules allow candidates to raise astronomical sums of money from the wealthiest people in America. Since 1960, every president except Trump has won by spending more money than their opponent. The cost of the 2020 election was approximately $14 billion, double that of 2016; Biden's spending compared to Trump's was roughly at a 2:1 ratio, and Biden won the election by a narrow margin. Elections have been reduced to an exercise in the wealthy purchasing the next government. One does not have to admire Trump to notice that he won in 2016 by exploiting the weaknesses of the system, while Biden won in 2020 by deepening those weaknesses.
As for "democracy for the people," the bipartisan neoliberal consensus—Republican neoliberalism cutting taxes for the rich, Democratic neoliberalism inventing new ways for the rich to get wealthier, such as Obamacare—stands as evidence that American democracy does not serve the people. Over the past 40 years, these policies have created an economy of despair for ordinary people.
Due to economic inequality, social and political divisions have also become entrenched. When analyzing the 2020 U.S. election, American Marxist Mike Davis argued that before the onset of neoliberalism, U.S. presidential election contests were like "World War II, with [both sides of the war] moving rapidly and large swaths of territory quickly gained and lost." Forty years of neoliberalism has turned presidential elections into something more like "World War I, with a largely static front and endless trench warfare." In waging such an war, the two parties have become accountable only to very small, specific groups, resulting in legislative deadlock.
Rather than dreaming of leading a "Summit for Democracy," President Biden would do well to reflect on the decaying environment in which his office is situated and listen to those within it: "If the United States has almost no functioning democracy at home, how can it spread democracy or set an example for others?" Physician, heal thyself!
III. Liberal Democratic States in Macpherson's Mirror
The ideological arrogance of Western countries concerning democracy today is best understood within a historical context. There was once a time when Western critical thinkers took the democratic claims of the non-Western world seriously. Insights from figures such as Crawford B. Macpherson, Canada’s most famous Marxist philosopher, reveal a profound and ironic asymmetrical engagement. While China’s proposal of "whole-process people’s democracy" allows the world to understand the continuous improvement of China's democratic processes, Biden’s "Alliance of Democracies" is unconcerned with the health of American democracy, focusing instead on attacking countries designated as "authoritarian."
As early as 2018, speaking at the inauguration of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Biden spoke of the deficiencies in American democracy. However, he merely indulged in partisan attacks on Trump, complaining that the United States was susceptible to populism while remaining silent on its root causes: the power of corporate money and the media in maintaining a neoliberal order beneficial to capital and property. Because of this order, the vast majority of American citizens suffer the torments of stagnant wages, widening inequality, high unemployment, racism, mistrust, and hopelessness.
Biden’s approach also undermines the international understanding of democracy. In fact, as an imperialist power, the United States does not abide by democracy and only makes concessions when forced by the realities of the balance of power. Biden seeks to replace the United Nations’ multilateral dialogue and negotiation with a concocted "rules-based international order" that serves Western corporate interests. This alliance justifies aggressive hybrid interference, including "color revolutions" and the punishment of allies—such as a China-friendly Germany or those who "soften" toward Russia.
Macpherson foresaw this as early as the 1970s. For him, the liberal democracy of Western capitalism, as well as democracy in socialist and developing countries, all possessed a "genuine historical claim to the title of democracy." Whether liberal or not, the "ultimate goal" of all democracy was the same: "to provide the conditions for the full and free development of the essential human capacities of all members of society." In fact, he argued that capitalist liberal democracies faced immense obstacles in achieving this goal because their formal institutions were liberal and representative, designed to protect the rights of private property owners. Parliaments, elected by groups of capitalists and feudal property owners, were stages for brokering their various interests. It was only later, due to the struggles of working people, that these parliaments became "democratic." Through a long process, parliaments gradually expanded the franchise, though not without suffering setbacks.
While Fascism was the most severe setback, legal barriers in the American South continued to prevent Black citizens from voting until the 1970s. Even today, the Black vote is suppressed by Republicans and ruthlessly manipulated by Democrats. Furthermore, Macpherson believed that while liberal systems became more "democratic," they also made democracy more "liberal." Through varying combinations of constitutions, laws, concessions to working people, and force or fraud in elections, it was ensured that democratic systems would not erode private property rights.
Today, the deepening corruption of American democracy is rooted in the attempt to preserve wealth and privilege, even as its capacity to serve its own interests has sharply declined. Macpherson even warned that when socialist and developing countries demonstrate that protecting the rights and privileges of a propertied minority is no longer a necessary condition for expanding productive forces and increasing efficiency, liberal democracy might prove to be inferior. Decades after his death, China’s developmental achievements—the Communist Party of China’s ability to organize the greatest industrialization process in history and achieve leadership in technology and ecology—have vindicated Macpherson’s prediction.
Clearly, it is neither possible nor necessary to judge Chinese democracy using Western liberal democratic concepts as critics do. Instead, one must look at the goals, ideals, and principles that the revolutionary collective has set for itself, and how they treat their complex history: from the early emphasis on equality to the inclusion of elements of efficiency today, while striving to strengthen the operation of China’s democratic system. Naturally, a more substantive comparison of which system can "provide the conditions for the full and free development of human capacities for all members of society" would likely find the United States in a poor light—perhaps because its significantly higher income and wealth do not match the developmental conditions it provides for the masses.
IV. Weaponizing a Decaying Liberal Democracy
This reality reached its zenith in December 2021, when President Biden convened a virtual "Summit for Democracy," launching the first annual signature event of his "Big Idea" (the Alliance of Democracies). By all accounts, the summit did not produce the intended effect, which was entirely expected.
The United States is currently in a state of blindness. It previously never needed to weaponize its liberal democratic political system to execute its foreign policy; as its recent ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrated, its economic and military capabilities are declining. But this is by no means the worst of it: the American democratic system—even more decayed than those of other Western nations—is racked by wave after wave of turmoil, popular mistrust, corruption, and resentment.
At the summit, President Biden was forced to mention a small fraction of American democracy’s many flaws, but did so only perfunctorily; he also touched upon the problem of "global democratic recession" and promised the U.S. would do better. However, can he?
Western democracies have been in decline for decades because their governments have one overriding goal: to allow a small elite of financiers and large corporations to remain in power at the expense of the people's interests. They can only achieve this through increasing corruption, fraud, and the manipulation of elections via money, news media, and social media. As these practices multiply, "populism" has galvanized a growing mistrust of the establishment. It is no wonder that even mainstream Western media, which usually cheers for U.S. actions, called the summit ill-conceived, hypocritical, misjudged, divisive, and potentially counterproductive. After all, according to reports from "democracy rating agencies," the U.S. itself has slipped into the position of a "flawed democracy."
Even in the heyday of liberal democracy, things were not much better. The original political systems of the capitalist hubs were liberal, with representatives of a propertied minority managing their common affairs. It was only due to the fierce struggles of the people that they became democratic in a limited sense—that is, by (gradually) extending the franchise to the adult population. Yet, even as they did so, their democracy remained a liberal democracy. That is to say, they framed democracy with various constitutional constraints—primarily private property rights and various "checks and balances"—to prevent the power of the people from infringing upon the rights, privileges, and power of a small elite to increasingly appropriate national income and wealth. It is no wonder that even during the post-war "Golden Age" of Western liberal democracies, the U.S. had to mobilize the CIA and its subsidiaries to maintain the capitalist systems of these societies.
Whether at the G20, within the North American Free Trade Area established by the USMCA, or at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Biden has been unable to rally the declining democracies abroad; this failure was also confirmed at the "Summit for Democracy." For all the speeches about the "ideals" of democracy, the guest list for the summit included 29 countries considered "partly free" by Freedom House, which was eye-opening. While the list mercifully excluded Saudi Arabia, it included Brazilian President Bolsonaro and Indian Prime Minister Modi—two governments that committed horrifying violations of their citizens' right to life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why were they included, while Turkish President Erdoğan or Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán were excluded? Why was Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed leader of Venezuela, included? Why was Taiwan included, despite the U.S. accepting the One China Policy and the claim that the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China? The cloak of democracy can no longer hide a substantial portion of realpolitik.
Moreover, new rifts are appearing within traditional Western alliances. Continental Europe wants a less sharp policy toward China and Russia. However, the latest Anglo-American alliance that emerged with the AUKUS agreement, along with subordinates like Australia, prefers a more hawkish stance.
While Western commentary has pointed out the many dangers and shortcomings of the recently concluded summit, it ignores the most significant danger. China and other countries can—and have—struck back with a sharp critique of capitalist liberal democracy, proposing their own robust concepts, institutions, and practices of democracy, such as China’s White Paper on "Whole-Process People’s Democracy" and the open letter by Anatoly Antonov and Qin Gang, the Russian and Chinese ambassadors to Washington D.C. They are saying: if you want to talk about democracy, let’s talk about democracy.
V. The Gravest Violations of Democracy and Human Rights
The Western liberal democracy described above sounds bad enough, but it has not yet touched upon the worst aspect: colonial settlers seizing land, sovereignty, resources, and rights from thousands of indigenous nations—one need look no further than Canada. Just as the Canadian Parliament voted unanimously that China was committing a so-called "genocide" in Xinjiang, and Canada’s representative at the UN Human Rights Council repeated these false allegations, the centuries-long struggle of Indigenous peoples displaced by Canada for their land, rights, and sovereignty entered a new phase.
In late May 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc people announced they had discovered 215 [N1] unmarked graves of children on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which was managed by the Catholic Church and funded by the federal government. For decades, Indigenous children were separated from their families at a young age, subjected to physical and sexual abuse, malnutrition (often intentional as part of experiments), and a systematic program of deculturalization—"to kill the Indian in the child." The centuries of struggle against the Canadian settler government led to the publication of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report, which concluded that what happened in these residential schools amounted to "cultural genocide." With the discovery of the unmarked graves, people realized the first word, "cultural," was redundant; it was genocide.
Most other indigenous nations are now using ground-penetrating radar to probe residential school sites in their regions. On June 27, 2021, another 751 unmarked graves were discovered at the Cowessess First Nation in southeastern Saskatchewan. Without a doubt, more will be found.
Religious and secular authorities are now shifting blame back and forth: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said "sorry" and asked Pope Francis to do the same, while the Catholic Church responded that the church operated these institutions at the behest of the Canadian state.
When new evidence of a horrific, real genocide within Canada was discovered, many pointed out the extreme hypocrisy of the baseless allegations of genocide against China; Trudeau, however, claimed that at least Canada admits to genocide.
Is that so? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission focused only on residential schools, ignoring numerous other stains of settler-colonialism over the centuries. We could list the dispossession of land, the violation of treaties, the seizure of children by state bureaucracies, the routine racism of the public, government officials, police, and medical institutions, inadequate food, housing and schooling, "boil water" advisories, social chaos and suffering, the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous people, and hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Yet, this is far from a complete list. Furthermore, the TRC was not authorized to reach a conclusion of genocide, nor did it implicate the Canadian government legally; hence, it reached the lesser conclusion of "cultural genocide."
Furthermore, in accordance with the political style of Western capitalist nations, the human rights of those violated by imperialism receive, at most, symbolic recognition, followed by partial recognition, but never substantive rectification. After all, the primary function of a capitalist state like Canada is to embody the power of its capitalist class and protect its property rights. The majority of ordinary citizens must engage in prolonged and arduous struggles just to have their voices heard, and even then, they are heard only faintly and in a distorted manner. The property rights that the Canadian state protects most considerately are those of the extractive capitalist class based on land mining and agriculture, which is precisely at the core of the violation of Indigenous rights. Canada must cease being an extractive, settler-colonial capitalist state before it can end the genocide against Indigenous peoples and nations and restore their land, sovereignty, and rights. Whether all of this can occur without a social transformation equivalent to socialism remains an open question.
Democracy and human rights are less the reality of capitalist society than they are ideological weapons for capitalism’s exercise of class oppression and imperialist strategy.
(Notes omitted)
(Author's Affiliations: Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba, Canada; Geopolitical Economy Research Group [GERG], University of Manitoba, Canada. Translator's Affiliation: Institute of Marxism Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences [CASS])
Online Editor: Zhang Jian Source: World Socialism Studies (《世界社会主义研究》), Issue 8, 2022