Wang Jianfeng: The U.S. "Summit for Democracy" and New Challenges to China's Ideological Security
Since Biden took office, the comprehensive strategic competition between China and the United States has increasingly manifested as "white-hot." Within this context, the U.S. has intensified its diplomatic offensive against China in the ideological sphere. A noteworthy development is the global "Summit for Democracy" which the Biden administration has actively cultivated in recent years. In March 2024, the third Summit for Democracy, themed "Democracy for Future Generations," was hosted by the Yoon Suk-yeol government of South Korea. In his speech at the opening ceremony, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken stated bluntly that "defending and accelerating our democratic renewal at home requires that we help shape a world where democracy can flourish." It is evident that a foreign policy line rooted in Western "democratic values" has gradually come to dominate Biden’s grand strategic concepts and practice. Against the backdrop of the relative decline of U. S. hegemony and the increasingly fierce all-around Indo-Pacific geostrategic game between the U.S. and China, the Biden administration's advancement of "democracy" and values-based diplomacy—and its global implementation of the "Summit for Democracy"—is intended to whip up an ideological war against countries such as China. Consequently, under the uncertainty and instability of the world’s changes unseen in a century [1], the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" has brought a series of new challenges to our country's ideological security.
I. The Background of the Emergence of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy"
It was no accident that Biden replayed the "democracy card" in global politics after taking office; it was born of the strategic objective of using "democratic" ideology to consolidate the fragile foundation of a waning U.S. hegemony, and to maintain the image and ideological appeal of American "democracy" amid intensifying political polarization. These two factors—stemming from the global and domestic levels respectively—are viewed by the Biden administration as major challenges to "American-style democracy," leading to the urgent creation of the "Summit for Democracy" as a rescue plan. Thus, "democracy" has returned to the core of U.S. grand strategy as a method both old and new. "Old" refers to how "democracy" has remained a pillar for the U.S. to maintain the old international order and demonstrate the superiority of its political system since the Cold War. "New," meanwhile, emphasizes the contrast with the Obama era’s downplaying of overseas "democracy" promotion based on pragmatic principles, and the damage done to the image of American "democracy" by Trump’s anti-establishment and anti-traditionalist line. Biden chose to design the "Summit for Democracy" as an entirely new institutional model to remold "American-style democracy" as a benchmark.
(1) "Democracy" and Its Ideology are Important Pillars for the Biden Administration to Maintain U.S. Leadership of the World
Upon entering the White House, in addition to accelerating the recovery of the international institutional and alliance foundations required to maintain the hegemonic order, Biden reorganized "democracy" and its ideology into important means of shaping U.S. hegemonic leadership. In the preface to the 2022 National Security Strategy, Biden explicitly pointed out that the U.S. would continue to defend global "democracy," with the strategic goal of using "democracy" as a key pillar for maintaining U.S. global leadership. In Biden’s view, maintaining the "manifest destiny" of American "leadership of the world" requires "both maintaining the growth momentum of American national power and guiding other countries to practice Western-style 'democratic politics.'" Faced with the continuous rise of emerging economies represented by China, the anxiety regarding the relative decline of U.S. hegemony has made the Biden administration exceptionally sensitive about whether it can continue to maintain its global leadership position. The U.S. under Biden urgently needs to ensure an "America First" situation in the fields of hard power and material foundations—such as the economy, trade, military, and technology—while simultaneously using the "Summit for Democracy" to spread the concepts and norms of "American-style democracy" globally. In short, U.S. global leadership must be supported by material power while being supplemented by "democracy" and its ideology as a bond linking allies, partner countries, and other pro-U.S. regimes.
Under the current backdrop of the U.S. launching a "New Cold War" against China, the Biden administration’s creation of the "Summit for Democracy" is intended to demonstrate strong U.S. leadership in the global ideological sphere. Following four years of "America First" foreign policy and the Capitol riot of 2021, the "Summit for Democracy" is viewed as a test of the U.S.’s continued global appeal and leadership in the areas of "democracy" and human rights. To elaborate, during his term, Trump disparaged the function of NATO, rejected East Asian allies, and rebelled against certain shared Western "democratic" values, which more or less exacerbated the centrifugal forces felt by other Western-style "democratic" countries toward the U.S.; American leadership within the Western camp and global alliance was artificially weakened. The "Summit for Democracy," by contrast, relies internally on shared capitalist ideology and Western "democratic" norms, while externally manufacturing narratives about the threat posed by so-called "authoritarian" regimes like China and Russia to global "democracy." This achieves the strategic objective of demarcating friend from foe based on ideological proximity and diverting internal Map contradictions by identifying a common enemy. The fact that major developed countries like the "G7" attended the "Summit for Democracy" is itself a symbol of the Western camp’s recognition of U.S. leadership in the ideological sphere. By convening the summit via video conference, the Biden administration reshaped the core leadership of the U.S. at a low cost while smoothing relations with the Western "democratic" camp.
(2) The U.S. Domestically Urgently Needs the Biden Administration to Reshape its Image as a "Beacon of Democracy"
In recent years, the most striking phenomenon in the American political process has been intensifying political polarization. That is, the consensus and cohesion between the Democratic and Republican parties, and between the establishment and the anti-establishment, on many major socio-political issues and ideologies have continued to shrink, while conflict and centrifugal forces have gradually solidified. Examples include the impeachment of Trump launched by Democrats and the judicial reviews conducted against him; the mutual infighting between different factions within the Republican Party; and the Capitol riot caused by Trump supporters. This series of negative socio-political events against a backdrop of polarization has severely impacted the effective operation of the U.S. political system and the governing efficacy of the government. As Francis Fukuyama noted when discussing the radical phenomenon of identity politics in the Trump era, "the current dysfunction and decay of the American political system are related to the intensifying and severe polarization of American politics." The negative events stemming from political polarization have, to some extent, deconstructed the "beacon" image that "American-style democracy" has always self-proclaimed, as well as the appeal of capitalist ideology. People have begun to question the practical effectiveness of emulating "American-style democracy" for state-building and institutional design. The success of Trump’s 2016 campaign was even viewed as a "carnival of the mob," with Trump-supporting voters who "know nothing about all the informal rules and norms that make a democratic system function well." This has sparked deep concerns about whether the U.S. will ultimately evolve into a "democracy without democrats." All of this indicates that, domestically, the development of "American-style democracy" faces the hidden erosion of political polarization; abroad, the image of "American-style democracy," which has long considered itself a "role model," is being questioned.
The Biden administration’s prescription for saving American "democracy" from the crisis of political polarization is the "Summit for Democracy." In specific operation, the Biden administration sets the summit themes within a scope of universal concern to participants or the globe, and then emphasizes the obligation and responsibility of the U.S. to lead in solving these "democracy"-related issues, thereby continuing to showcase its image as a defender of democracy to the outside world. The 2021 summit theme focused on resisting "authoritarianism," addressing and combating corruption, and promoting respect for human rights. The 2023 theme further expanded to new paths for "democratic" transition, the issue of peace in Ukraine, realizing the "democracy dividend," defending the rule of law against hostile states, anti-corruption, "democratic" solidarity, the status of women in "democratic" countries, the Business and Democracy Forum, and responding to hate-fueled violence. It can be seen that the themes framed by the Biden administration—such as anti-corruption, guaranteeing human rights, and improving the status of women—easily gain the approval of participants because they carry "universal values," while themes like "authoritarianism" or the Russia-Ukraine conflict stimulate participants to seek U.S. security protection. The selection of these themes effectively conceals the negative impact of various negative "democratic" events currently existing within the U.S.; conversely, relying on the "Summit for Democracy," the Biden administration has re-established the image of the U.S. as a global savior of "democracy."
It must be made clear that the Biden administration’s efforts to restore the image of the U.S. as a "beacon of democracy" and reshape global ideological dominance through the "Summit for Democracy" are, in the final analysis, intended to coordinate with the strategic vision of maintaining hegemony. The 2022 National Security Strategy stated unabashedly: "We have not always lived up to our ideals, and in recent years, our democracy has been challenged from within," and "the quality of our democracy at home affects the strength and credibility of our leadership abroad." American scholars Hal Brands and Charles Edel argue that "improving domestic democracy should be a supplement to, not a substitute for, overseas leadership." It is evident that the internal task of the "Summit for Democracy"—dissolving the negative effects of political polarization—serves the external objective of consolidating U.S. global leadership. Building the institutional platform of the "Summit for Democracy" to promote "American-style democracy" values while downplaying domestic "democratic" contradictions is, at a deeper strategic level, intended to inject soft power elements and ideological foundations into the construction of a U.S.-led world order.
II. The Norms and Functions of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy"
"Norms" refer to the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" carrying a strong ideological color and pursuit of value promotion; it is the symbol of the "Summit for Democracy" as an end in itself. "Functions" refer to the "Summit for Democracy" carrying potential strategic plans to solve specific regional and global problems; it is the expression of the "Summit for Democracy" as a means. Of these two attributes, the normative goal involving ideological competition is the primary pursuit of the summit, and functional goals ultimately serve and are subordinate to the normative goals.
On the one hand, regarding functional attributes, the Biden administration seeks to strengthen links and coordination with what it defines as "democratic regimes" through the "Summit for Democracy," linking ideology and "democracy" to specific issues to respond to "global challenges" such as geopolitical threats, supply chain restructuring, high-tech controls, the climate crisis, and global economic recovery. The "Summit for Democracy" is a manifestation of Biden’s return to the Democratic Party’s use of international institutions and pseudo-multilateralism to advance U.S. hegemonic leadership. In explaining the summit’s agenda, White House officials explicitly emphasized the "effectiveness of collective action in addressing the most pressing challenges of our time." In a sense, the "Summit for Democracy" is essentially the "Concert of Democracies" emphasized by Scott Lawless, which assumes that this institution can collectively handle security affairs within the "democratic world" and promote burden-sharing among "democratic" countries. Building a "Concert of Democracies" helps accumulate the power and collective will necessary to shape a new world order in accordance with U.S. interests. It is not difficult to see that the Biden administration has adopted a method of "generalizing democracy" [2] in areas such as high-tech controls, supply chain restructuring, and responding to NATO and Indo-Pacific geopolitical "threats." That is, it paints issues that originally belonged to non-ideological fields—such as technology, economy, and military—as significant sources of threat to Western "democracy" and its ideology. It then induces other major global allies and partners to join a U.S.-led "democratic community," thereby constructing a collective response model based on shared costs. More crucially, "democratic" values involve the issue of "political correctness"; by appealing to values, the U.S. can get its allies to abandon considerations of certain realistic economic interests. Thus, the "Summit for Democracy" has become a new tool for the Biden administration to respond to global challenges at a controllable cost in an era where U.S. grand strategy has generally shifted toward contraction.
Specifically, first, it unites "democratic regimes" to build a global blockade line against high-end technologies, while actively utilizing new technological means to respond to the trend of the "global democratic recession." At the first Summit for Democracy, the U.S., along with countries such as Australia, Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, formally proposed the "Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative."
), aiming to "counter the trend of authoritarian governments misusing technology and to promote an affirmative vision of technology anchored in democratic values." Under this initiative, contracting parties link human rights standards to technology export licenses. Their domestic enterprises must obtain government permission before engaging in technical trade or cooperation with other "authoritarian governments" or foreign companies included on "entity lists." The third Summit for Democracy proposed countering other nations' use of commercial spyware to engage in activities that violate human rights, fundamental freedoms, and democratic values.
Second, using the 2022 Ukraine crisis as an inducement, the U.S. has intensified the construction of a global "democratic polity" alliance to respond to the "geopolitical threat" of China and Russia. At the second Summit for Democracy, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken chaired a panel discussion on the Ukraine crisis, advocating for an end to Russia's war and the establishment of a "just and lasting" peace in Ukraine under the principles of the UN Charter. Furthermore, the White House included the Taiwan region of China on the invitation list for both summits, exerting maximum effort to play up the narrative that a reunification of China by force would constitute a "threat" by an "authoritarian government" against a "democratic polity." This was intended to induce more Indo-Pacific allies and partners to jointly respond to China's "growth in power" in the Asia-Pacific region, thereby achieving the Summit for Democracy’s latent goal of partitioning the world based on ideological affinity.
At the same time, the Summit for Democracy constitutes a brand-new institutional framework through which the Biden administration continues to shape a series of "American-style democracy" values and normative principles into global "universal values." It imparts new vitality and a fresh face to "American-style democracy" to ensure it remains invincible in the global ideological competition.
First, the U.S. uses the Summit for Democracy as an opportunity to continue the American-style transformation of other countries' political and social lives, coordinating with U.S.-instigated "color revolutions" [3] overseas. The 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy explicitly stated that "the American democratic experiment has long been a source of inspiration for people around the world." A latent goal of the Summit for Democracy is to continue hawking "American-style democracy" to the broad array of participating developing countries and to provide substantive financial assistance for "democratic" transformation activities in other nations. One action plan of the "Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal," formally proposed by the U.S. at the first Summit for Democracy, is "Supporting Democratic Reformers," which explicitly states support for "activists, workers, and reform-minded leaders." In practice, the U.S. State Department provided $10 million to the "Lifeline: Embattled CSOs Assistance Fund" to support "threatened" human rights defenders and activists globally. The State Department also funded $1 million to establish the "Bridging Understanding, Integrity, and Legitimacy for Democracy (BUILD) Initiative" to provide professionals in closed political spaces with the technology and resources to provide guidance when "democratic" windows of opportunity emerge. USAID provided $15 million to launch the "Powered by the People" initiative to assist "non-violent social movements." Additionally, the U.S. Department of Labor, State Department, and USAID jointly provided approximately $1.2 billion to create the "Multilateral Partnership for Organizing, Worker Empowerment, and Rights (M-POWER)" to assist in labor rights defense, wage increases, and working environment improvements by strengthening "democratic" and independent worker organizations and supporting labor law reform and implementation. In fact, as the Cold War was drawing to a close, it was precisely by supporting trade union leaders and labor organizations in Eastern European socialist countries that the U.S. eventually disintegrated the Communist Party regimes of those nations. After the Cold War, the U.S. achieved its goal of "color revolutions" to change regimes in several developing countries by relying on funding for non-governmental organizations and social movements. The "democratic reformers" the Summit for Democracy seeks to engage are precisely these key targets—union leaders, labor groups, and NGOs in target countries—who serve as potential internal agents for "color revolutions." Once another country accepts aid and support from the "Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal," the U.S. gains the privilege of "long-arm jurisdiction" over that country's process of "democratic" political development, providing an advantage for the U.S. to manufacture "color revolutions" overseas.
Second, the U.S. relies on the platform of the Summit for Democracy to provoke a new ideological war globally, fostering an atmosphere for a "New Cold War." Currently, the strategic blockade the U.S. is implementing against China in the three major hard-power fields of economy, technology, and military is the manifestation of the "New Cold War" on a material basis. Meanwhile, the sense of superiority regarding "American-style democracy" advocated by the Summit for Democracy—along with the resulting new round of competition over socio-political systems, economic development models, and ideologies—reflects the "New Cold War" in the dimension of ideas and concepts. In a certain sense, the U.S. fear of heterogeneous ideologies sometimes exceeds the structural pressure exerted by hostile forces at the material level. Reviewing the history of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, Soviet ideology was viewed by U.S. policymakers as a threat to national security, and ideological considerations overrode economic interests as the driving factor of U.S. foreign policy during that period. The institutional superiority inherent in Chinese-path modernization is increasingly drawing global attention; by contrast, the Western world currently faces a crisis of a generalized "democratic recession." Against this backdrop, the U.S. has built the Summit for Democracy platform to promote "values-based diplomacy" and the concept of "American-style democracy" to the international community, which will inevitably intensify global ideological confrontation. The Summit for Democracy is a product of the U.S. viewing strategic competition with China through a Cold War mentality; it is an indispensable and vital link in the ideological sphere of the Biden administration's commencement of an all-domain "New Cold War" against China.
III. Understanding the Internal Flaws of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy"
By examining the "Summit for Democracy" created by the Biden administration through the three perspectives of development models, selection criteria, and narrative content, one can identify several inherent flaws. These internal flaws are the counter-forces secretly eroding the Summit for Democracy and its subsequent actions.
(1) The Unilateralization of the "Democratic" Model The "democratic" and ideological content promoted so vigorously by the Summit for Democracy remains, at its core, "American-style democracy." It is not a universal "democratic" model, let alone the sole form of democratic politics for the entire world. The Biden administration's full-throated promotion of the Summit for Democracy is fundamentally aimed at strengthening the global marketing of "American-style democracy," with the intention of continuing to package it as the exclusive blueprint for other countries' democratic practices. The 2023 Declaration of the Summit for Democracy noted that "democracy can take many forms" but includes certain "shared characteristics," such as free and fair elections and the separation of powers. It is evident that the diversity of "democratic" models recognized by the Summit for Democracy is built upon a series of core elements of "American-style democracy." The "democratic" pluralism it flaunts essentially fails to escape the trap of the unilateralized connotation of "American-style democracy." That is to say, the Summit for Democracy is not a platform for the centralized display of democratic concepts and practices from different countries and regions worldwide; it cannot truly reflect the reality of the diversity of global democratic models. On the contrary, the Summit for Democracy has already become a camp of pseudo-multilateralism where "American-style democracy" performs a solo act.
Looking back at history while observing the present, it is not difficult to find that the "American-style democracy" advocated by the Summit for Democracy is merely one form in the history of human democratic development. "American-style democracy" cannot be equated with global democracy, nor is it a template that other countries can directly copy and paste during their processes of state-building and achieving modernization. As early as the 1830s and 40s, the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville state directly in Democracy in America that the American political structure was merely one of the forms of government a democratic nation could adopt, rather than the only or the best form that democratic nations should establish. In response to the U.S. Summit for Democracy, the white paper China: Democracy That Works (2021) also pointed out: "Democracy is diverse, and there is more than one path to achieve it. As countries have different histories, cultures, and current national conditions, their choices of democratic forms must necessarily differ." Undeniably, any country's democratic model is a product deeply rooted in its own historical and cultural traditions and actual political practice. "Democracy cannot be created according to an abstract principle—that is, it cannot ignore the consideration of historical circumstances and the need for decision-making yardsticks." If the U.S. Summit for Democracy ignores the diversification of democratic development and ideological differences across different countries and regions, and instead insists on transforming other nations according to "American-style democracy," the tension between the values of "American-style democracy" and other nations' self-perception of democracy will bring catastrophic consequences for the latter. For instance, the U.S. democratic transformation plans in the Middle East after the September 11 attacks eventually triggered the "Arab Spring," which caused a severe shock to the regional order.
(2) The Ambiguity of Western "Democratic" Standards The greatest internal controversy of the Summit for Democracy is the ambiguity in the definition of "democratic" standards. There are vast differences in the current "democratic" status of the participating parties; the Summit's judgment on whether a country is "democratic" is directly linked to U.S. national interests. In his speech at the opening ceremony of the first Summit for Democracy, Biden cited the Freedom House 2020 annual report, noting that global freedom had been in decline for 15 consecutive years. Here, even by the standards of the so-called "freedom index" and "democratic" performance in the Freedom House report, the Summit's practice of screening the invitation list based on "democracy" is extremely perplexing. For example, according to the Freedom House 2021 annual report, the Maldives, Nauru, Serbia, and Poland were listed among the "countries with the greatest democratic regression over the past 10 years"; India and the Philippines were listed as regressing countries among those with the "greatest democratic gains and losses in 2020"; and the U.S. itself was listed on both of these negative "democratic" lists. However, these "democratically" regressing countries were nonetheless permitted to participate in the Summit for Democracy. In the second Summit for Democracy, nearly one-third of the attendees were listed as "partly free" in the Freedom House 2023 annual report, and "not free" countries such as Congo and Iraq were also invited. In other words, although Biden used the Freedom House reports to argue the reality that global "democracy" is under siege and in decline, the Summit for Democracy still selectively included some countries that the Freedom House annual reports identified as regressing or having poor "democratic" records—countries that the report itself defined as the root causes of the global "democratic" recession in recent years. This fully demonstrates that the Summit for Democracy's determination of "democratic" standards is extremely chaotic and uncertain.
In fact, American scholars such as Hal Brands pointed out before the Summit officially convened that the Biden administration would face thorny issues in defining "democracy." Looking across the invitation lists for the two Summits for Democracy, the Biden administration has not resolved the selection criteria for "democracy." "Democracy" was not even the primary or sole indicator for participation; the U.S. determined participants more from the perspective of its own grand strategic interests rather than their actual "democratic" status. As these American scholars revealed, India, Pakistan's primary rival, participated, which made it difficult to exclude Pakistan from the Summit for Democracy, because after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration needed Pakistan's cooperation in dealing with the Taliban. Meanwhile, Hungary was the only EU member state not invited to the 2021...
The inclusion of certain countries in the 2021 "Summit for Democracy" stemmed from the Biden administration's desire to punish the closeness between the Hungarian leadership and former President Trump. That is to say, beyond overseas geopolitical considerations, the partisan struggle between the Democratic and Republican parties is also an important factor influencing the standards of "democracy" judged by the "Summit for Democracy." Furthermore, those countries and regions that follow the United States' lead [4] were able to join the "Summit for Democracy" list, while other countries pursuing independent foreign policies were not invited. In summary, when the standards of "democracy" conflict with realistic factors such as the Biden administration's grand national strategy requirements, partisan interests, or the closeness of bilateral relations, "democracy" must give way. The ambiguity and even arbitrariness of "democratic" standards are bound to backfire on the authority and credibility of the "Summit for Democracy," which serves as lateral evidence that the "democracy" within the "Summit for Democracy" is instrumental.
(3) The Irreality of the "Democracy" Narrative The "Summit for Democracy" uses a false binary narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to shape a paradigm for understanding world politics, thereby concealing the internal contradictions of "American-style democracy" and the predicament of its global ebb tide. When discussing the reasons for designing the "Summit for Democracy," Biden pointed out that "in the face of sustained and alarming challenges to democracy, universal human rights, and all around the world, democracy needs champions." Since Biden took office, China's development model—which is distinctly different from Western modernization—together with Russia's strategic culture in the context of the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, have been viewed by the United States as the forced retreat of "democracy" and the oppressive advance of "authoritarianism." Even the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been described as an invasion of "democratic regimes" by "authoritarianism." The essence of Biden's national security strategic thinking is a binary opposition paradigm of "democracy" versus authoritarianism. In the "Summit for Democracy," this is manifested as a binary struggle between participating "democratic regimes" and excluded "authoritarian" countries. However, this ideological dichotomy is not a scientific paradigm for fully understanding current global politics. Robert A. Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in the United States, pointed out that the division of "democracy" and authoritarianism by the "Summit for Democracy" is a flawed assumption; the proposition of "autocracy" is an act of intellectual laziness and an oversimplified dichotomy of a complex world. The "Summit for Democracy" precisely utilizes this minimalist binary narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism" to seek maximum concealment of the dire state of democracy within the United States and the declining appeal of "American-style democracy" on a global scale.
The "democracy versus authoritarianism" promoted by the "Summit for Democracy" is actually a false narrative. Its irreality lies in characterizing "authoritarianism" as the key independent variable for the global retreat and decline of "democracy." In fact, "democratization is usually a process that happens within a country... many of the most serious threats to democracy are endogenous: distrust, polarization, voter suppression, and the partisan system." The global retreat of "democracy" emphasized by the "Summit for Democracy" is fundamentally a phenomenon of the global decline of "democracy" based on the "American-style democracy" model. Faced with this predicament, the Biden administration has not reflected on the embarrassing "democratic" practices within the United States in recent years or the deficiencies in the concept of "American-style democracy" itself, but has instead blamed the so-called "massive rise of authoritarianism." "The assumption that the sharp rise of authoritarian regimes is a threat—or the primary factor in the weakening of democratic regimes—seems to confuse cause and effect." The "democratic" backsliding in countries such as India, Brazil, the Philippines, and Poland was generated from within. A challenge facing the "Summit for Democracy" lies in its primary narrative: the belief that the crisis of "democracy" originates from the struggle between global democratic regimes and "authoritarian countries," rather than from the internal conflicts of democratic regimes. Obviously, this false narrative of "democracy versus authoritarianism," which ignores internal causes, is unlikely to resonate with a global audience. The metaphysical narrative of the "Summit for Democracy"—detached as it is from the true status of "American-style democracy" and the practice of global "democratic" development—cannot obscure the basic facts of the diverse forms of human democracy and its ideologies.
IV. New Exogenous Challenges Facing China's Ideological Security There is no doubt that the "Summit for Democracy," painstakingly crafted by the Biden administration, will set off a new round of ideological competition against China on a global scale. Currently, ideology has already become an important weapon in the U.S. strategy to contain China. "By shaping the ideological differences between China and the U.S. into an irreconcilable factual conflict, the United States intends to comprehensively contain China's development." The "Summit for Democracy" is precisely a new tool for the Biden administration to launch an ideological war against China. This is certainly because Chinese-path modernization, rooted in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, is shining brilliantly in world politics. Simultaneously, the social and political governance model of China in the New Era has demonstrated superiority when compared with Western experience. In contrast, the "democratic" practices of major developed capitalist countries in the United States and Europe in recent years have shown negative trends such as intensifying political polarization, violent riots, and the rise of populist parties. "American-style democracy," the Western model, and capitalist ideology are no longer the archetypes for global "democracy" and state-building. China's steady progress on its path to modernization, governance model, and socio-political system has made the Biden administration anxious to launch the "Summit for Democracy," the introduction of which has greatly increased the challenges to China's ideological security.
(1) The "Summit for Democracy" Pressures Our National Ideological Security Our socialist ideology is a complete system of ideas guided by Marxism and centered on the core socialist values as its core value pursuit. The U.S. "Summit for Democracy" attempts to erode the foundation of our socialist ideology by vigorously promoting the so-called "universal values" of Western "democracy" and capitalist ideology. Currently, the pressure exerted by the "Summit for Democracy" on our ideological security is concentrated in two major dimensions: core values at the conceptual level and development models at the practical level.
The first is the struggle over core values. Core values are an important manifestation of a specific ideology, and the game played over core values is the center of gravity in the struggle for ideological dominance. The Biden administration continues to package core values such as freedom, "democracy," and human rights under the Western capitalist system as "universal values." At the "Summit for Democracy," it formulated the "Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal," supported by financial aid, to promote "Western values" globally, especially in Third World countries. It is not difficult to see that the expansion plan for "Western values" with a clear agenda in the "Summit for Democracy" will form a new competitive situation with the common values of all humanity—centered on peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom—advocated by China in the international community in recent years. The common values of all humanity "do not impose one's own values and models on others, and do not engage in ideological confrontation," whereas the "Summit for Democracy" intends to market "Western values" to all countries and regions in the world. Furthermore, the common values of all humanity advocate for the harmonious coexistence of different civilizations by building a community with a shared future for humanity based on collaborative responses to global challenges. In contrast, the "Summit for Democracy" examines different global values with a black-and-white "democracy vs. non-democracy" mindset, and even seeks to forcibly transmit "Western values" by contacting so-called "democratic reformers" within the vast number of developing countries, attempting to achieve the "universalization" of "American-style democracy" through value penetration. In summary, the "Western values" vigorously promoted by the "Summit for Democracy" place significant pressure on our ideological security in terms of both objective pursuits and practical paths.
The second is the struggle over development models. Competition between development models is, in the final analysis, a competition over the superiority of political systems; it is a realistic contest of ideological competition as expressed through advantages in national governance. For a long time, Western countries relied on their economic achievements and social prosperity to give the saying "modernization = Westernization" a high degree of international discourse power [5]. Western-style modernization was once the "benchmark" for late-developing countries moving toward modernization. However, the success of Chinese-path modernization has "displayed a new landscape different from the Western modernization model" and "broken the myth that 'modernization = Westernization'." The Chinese solution and Chinese experience on the path to national modernization have triggered a sense of crisis in the West. Consequently, the Biden administration used the "Summit for Democracy" to increase its offensive against Chinese-path modernization. This is prominently manifested in describing the leaders of Chinese-path modernization and their inherent ideology as the rise of so-called "authoritarianism." At the same time, it views Chinese-path modernization, which is committed to shaping a new form of human civilization, as a challenge to Western civilization. In its themes and agenda settings, the "Summit for Democracy" links issues such as anti-corruption, defending human rights, commercial prosperity, and social equity with "American-style democracy," intending to highlight the remaining vitality of Western-style modernization. However, "its essence is 'using democracy as a pretext to suppress and contain countries with different social systems and different development models,'" attempting to smear the achievements of China in the New Era regarding the modernization of the national governance system and capacity through the false narrative of "authoritarianism versus democracy." The continuous pressure from the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" on "democracy," values, and governance models has significantly increased the external risks to maintaining national ideological security in the process of developing Chinese-path modernization.
(2) Realistic Measures for Our Country to Respond to the New Ideological Challenges Brought by the "Summit for Democracy" The current U.S. "Summit for Democracy" has brought severe challenges to our ideological work. "Ideological work is the work of establishing a heart for the country and a soul for the nation." Whether we can do a good job in ideological work under the new situation to better respond to the new challenges and pressures brought by the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" is directly related to the security of the regime, the system, and ideology in the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
First, at the macro level, we must command ideological security work from the perspective of the Holistic Approach to National Security, and construct a Holistic Ideological Security Outlook with the "Great Security" [6] concept to more effectively respond to the multi-dimensional challenges brought by the "Summit for Democracy." In the current construction of a new security pattern that coordinates security in various fields, political security is the primary task, and maintaining ideological security is one of the constituent elements of political security. In traditional cognition, ideological security plays a role of ideological guidance for the stability of a country's regime and system; therefore, maintaining ideological security in a general sense focuses more on these two major areas. However, the impact of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" on China's ideological security involves dimensions such as the political path, economic model, cultural values, and social governance. Therefore, facing the multiple ideological threats of the "Summit for Democracy," we must coordinate work in political security, economic security, cultural security, social security, and cyber security on the basis of adhering to the Holistic Approach to National Security. Furthermore, we should take the fundamental system of upholding the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological field, the "Four Confidences" of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the socialist core values, and the determined victory in the struggle for cyber-ideological security as the main core. We must collaboratively construct a Holistic Ideological Security Outlook. This "Great Security" concept of ideology can more comprehensively, efficiently, and purposefully resist the ideological attacks launched by the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" from multiple fields such as politics, economy, society, culture, and the internet.
Second, at the meso level, we must strategically strengthen our country's capacity for international ideological discourse communication and more purposefully neutralize the stigmatization of our country's ideology by the "Summit for Democracy" on a global scale. The Biden administration chose to create a "Summit for Democracy" encompassing more than 100 different subjects, intending to use the scale advantage of this pseudo-multilateralism to spread the international influence of "American-style democracy" while suppressing the increasing global influence of Chinese ideology on a larger scale. Fortunately, we have already begun to create a publicity model involving linkage between the government and the public to enhance China's ideological narrative capabilities. On the one hand, various official and unofficial Chinese media outlets have already produced external publicity films in English and other foreign languages that reflect the achievements of Chinese-path modernization and the Chinese people's pursuit of a better life, utilizing overseas platforms like TikTok and YouTube...
Using mainstream Western social media platforms [7], we should employ animation, micro-films, documentaries, and other formats with high public acceptability to tell "China stories" to overseas audiences. These stories should be "grounded" [8], focusing on the CPC leading the people in the pursuit of a better life and the realization of common prosperity, thereby generating resonance among people abroad. This narrative approach, which utilizes Western media from a grassroots perspective to proactively demonstrate the superiority of China’s governance in the New Era, can effectively offset the negative global ideological influence resulting from the "Summit for Democracy’s" attempts to smear our country. On the other hand, non-governmental think tanks and academic groups should organize international academic conferences and high-end forums centered on the themes of socialist democratic politics with Chinese characteristics and Chinese-path modernization. By engaging in agenda-setting and discourse-shaping on the topics of "democracy" and ideology, they can form a public opinion counter-offensive against the "Summit for Democracy." This partially alleviates the passive position China faces due to the "Summit for Democracy" seizing the global discourse on "democracy." By strategically enhancing the international communication of our ideological discourse through the linkage of "official + non-governmental" propaganda, we can gradually break the pattern wherein the United States uses the "Summit for Democracy" to manipulate global ideological discourse hegemony.
Finally, at the micro level, we must use cyber-ideological security as a critical starting point. We must strictly prevent the "Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal," established by the "Summit for Democracy," from increasing ideological penetration from within our borders by relying on foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and utilizing internet tools. "Without cybersecurity, there is no national security; if we cannot pass the test of the Internet, we cannot pass the test of long-term governance" [9]. Internet platforms filled with uncertainties, combined with NGOs that often wear the cloak of being "civilian, peaceful, and cooperative," are hidden tools of overseas ideological penetration that cannot be ignored. As mentioned previously, an ultimate goal of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy" in vigorously promoting the "Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal" is to contact so-called "democratic reformers" such as labor groups, trade unions, and activists in other countries, thereby achieving the hidden objective of disintegrating the ideological and political systems of other nations from within. In response to this trend, national security and internet regulatory departments must further strengthen anti-penetration supervision of popular domestic social and communication software such as WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu. They must curb U.S. intelligence agencies' use of these apps to internally spread various political rumors and other smearing information that easily intensifies social contradictions. In this process, it is even more necessary to prevent foreign NGOs from engaging in acts of ideological sabotage within our borders.
It is evident that the three "Summits for Democracy" built by the Biden administration are not the end point of the U.S. ideological war against China. This means that for a period of time in the future, our country's ideological security will consistently face continuous pressure and challenges from the U.S. "Summit for Democracy." Xi Jinping has emphasized that "ideology concerns the flag, the path, and national political security" [10]. For a China currently in the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, we must, on the basis of grasping the essence and inherent flaws of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy," use confidence in socialist democratic politics with Chinese characteristics to forcefully strike back against the offensive of "American-style democracy." We must respond to the "Summit for Democracy’s" practice of smearing China’s socio-political system and development model with the long-term progress of China's national governance capacity and the modernization of the governance system in the New Era, firmly defending our country’s ideological security. Of course, at the same time, we must remain even more vigilant against the U.S. seizing the opportunity of the "Summit for Democracy" to pull China into an orbit of comprehensive ideological competition—extending beyond trade, tariffs, technology, the military, and the humanities—thereby achieving the strategic goal of dragging down China in an all-around way, just as it did to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Avoiding being dragged into the trap of comprehensive ideological competition is a necessary implication of our scrutiny of the U.S. "Summit for Democracy."