How Biden can beat the great-power authoritarians in China and Russia
Foreign Policy,Russia,China,Joe Biden
President Biden’s Summit for Democracy offers free nations an opportunity to restore democratic momentum at a time when opportunistic authoritarians from Burma to Belarus are on the march. It’s time for democracies to stop playing defense and double down on their collective strengths — after all, autocrats are attacking open systems in part to stymie their own people’s natural attraction to freedom. Great-power authoritarians in China and Russia view subverting democratic practice as central to their geopolitical ambitions; should not free nations see protecting and promoting democracy as part of ours?
Yes, open societies are uniquely vulnerable to 21st century dangers from disinformation, polarization, cyber-subversion and malign foreign authoritarian influence. But they also are uniquely resilient and dynamic in ways that brittle autocracies ruling without popular consent can never be. And they outperform authoritarians in delivering broad-based prosperity. Nearly every high-income economy on Earth is a rule-of-law democracy that protects property and political rights — a reminder that developmental authoritarianism has natural limits.
