New Delhi: The 21st century will be a battle between democracies and autocracies, US President Joe Biden said earlier this week, stressing the need for countries to come together to “prove democracies work”.
At his first full-fledged press conference on 25 March, Biden referred to the fourth industrial revolution and said it is “absolutely clear” that this is a “battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies”. He also made direct references to the heads of China and Russia — Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin — and about their autocratic push.
“He (Xi Jinping) is very, very straightforward. Doesn’t have a democratic — with a small ‘D’ — bone in his body. But he’s a smart, smart guy. He’s one of the guys, like Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future and democracy can’t function in an ever — an ever-complex world,” Biden said.
He also talked about how the US will invite an alliance of democracies to discuss the future and the need to hold China accountable to follow the rules, whether “it relates to the South China Sea or the North China Sea, or their agreement made on Taiwan”.
Biden said that future generations will be “doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy?”
“Because that is what is at stake, not just with China. Look around the world. We’re in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence. Will there be middle class? How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology and the environment? How will they do that? And are democracies equipped — because all the people get to speak — to compete?” he said.
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‘China is out-investing us by a long shot’
Biden also stressed the need to work together in relation to China and Russia. Even in his European Council meeting this week, Biden talked about the “shared democratic values” between the US and the EU countries.
In his press briefing, he referred to meetings of the “so-called” Quad, of which India is a member alongside the US, Japan and Australia.
“And earlier this month — and apparently it got the Chinese’s attention; that’s not why I did it — I met with our allies and how we’re going to hold China accountable in the region: Australia, India, Japan, and the United States — the so-called Quad. Because we have to have democracies working together,” he said.
Referring to his two-hour conversation with Xi in February, Biden said while the US was not looking at a confrontation with China, there will be steep competition.
He talked about the US’s plans on investing a higher amount in pure research in science and technology.
“The future lies in who can, in fact, own the future as it relates to technology, quantum computing, a whole range of things, including in medical fields… And we’re going to make real investments. China is out-investing us by a longshot, because their plan is to own that future,” he said.
Restricting voting in some US states ‘un-American’
Biden said he also told Xi that Americans value the notion of freedom and human rights and, as long as “you and your country continues (sic) to blatantly violate human rights, “we’re going to continue, in an unrelenting way, to call to the attention of the world”.
“I made it clear that no American President — at least one did — but no American President ever back down from speaking out of what’s happening to the Uighurs, what’s happening in Hong Kong…”
Biden’s comments come at a time the US itself is amid a fierce debate on protecting people’s right to vote, with some states set to enforce stricter voting laws on absentee ballots, voting timings, among other things.
Biden said the basic right to vote is elemental in a democracy and called the initiative “un-American”.
“It’s sick. Deciding in some states that you cannot bring water to people standing in line, waiting to vote; deciding that you’re going to end voting at five o’clock when working people are just getting off work; deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances,” he said.
(Edited by Debalina Dey)
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