Biden's democracy summit unlikely to be effective: media

TOKYO  -- US President Joe Biden's democracy summit will highly likely produce no clear result and end up being "just another talk shop," the Japan Times has said recently.

On Dec 9 and 10, Biden will host what the White House calls the Summit for Democracy.

The summit is unlikely to have much of a lasting impact, the Japan Times said in a commentary on Nov 28.

The commentary said that a study by University of Cambridge researchers found that international dissatisfaction with democracy as a form of government has reached its highest level in more than two decades, with a vast range of factors underpinning this shift.

"A two-day summit is not going to just turn those attitudes around," the report said.

Even though the US president is convening the summit, the image of US democracy around the world has taken a horrible beating in recent years.

In a recent Pew Research Center poll of people in 17 different countries, some 57 percent of respondents said that US democracy has not been a good example in recent years. Meanwhile, only a median of 17 percent of respondents said that US democracy offered a good example for other countries.

The dire global view of US democracy will undermine the US president and his administration throughout the summit, the commentary said.

It will hinder Biden's ability to take the lead on issues, including convincing participants to issue a real, united statement of how, specifically, they plan to reverse global democratic regression. Without such a clear purpose, the summit may wind up as just another talk shop, the report said.