Report details failings in US democracy

The Foreign Ministry on Monday released a report on its website assessing the state of democracy in the United States, detailing the challenges the country faces domestically and the havoc it has created internationally by trying to impose its brand of democracy on other countries around the globe.

Titled "The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022", the report aims to present a real picture of US democracy over the past year based on facts, media coverage and expert opinions, the report said.

It is hoped that the report will help remove the facade of US democracy for people worldwide, it added.

In addition to the preamble and conclusion, the report has two parts titled "American democracy in chronic ills" and "The United States' imposition of 'democracy' has caused chaos around the world".

In 2022, a vicious cycle of democratic pretensions, dysfunctional politics and a divided society continued in the US, the report said, adding that problems such as money politics, identity politics, social rifts and the gulf between the rich and the poor worsened.

A joint poll conducted by Washington Post and the University of Maryland showed that Americans' pride in their democracy has dropped sharply, from 90 percent in 2002 to 54 percent in 2022.

The maladies afflicting US democracy deeply infect US politics and society, and further reveal US governance failure and institutional defects, it said.

However, Washington refuses to acknowledge the many problems and institutional crises confronting its democracy at home, and stubbornly claims to be the template and beacon of democracy for the world. Such imperiousness perpetuates the ills of its democracy and causes dire consequences for other countries, the report said.

Twenty years ago, the US claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and rallied its allies to invade the country, killing as many as 200,000 Iraqi civilians.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday that it is worrying that the US has clearly not learned any lesson from the Iraq war but continued to engage in conflicts in Libya and Syria, and has been touting its democracy across the world.

Facts have proved that a country's democratic system and development path cannot be imposed externally, and it should be explored and developed by its own people, Wang said at a daily news conference, adding that touting one's own democratic model in the name of democracy itself is undemocratic.

According to the Foreign Ministry report, those who have many flaws themselves have little credibility to lecture others, and attempts to undermine others for one's own profit and to destabilize the world must be unanimously opposed.

China Daily - Xinhua