Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping expects autocratic systems of governance to displace Western-style representative governments, according to President Joe Biden, who says a “battle” is underway that will decide which approach wins out.
“He doesn’t have a democratic, with a small ‘d,’ bone in his body, but he’s a smart, smart guy,” Biden told reporters during his first press conference since taking office. “He’s one of the guys, like Putin, who thinks that autocracy is the wave of the future, [that] democracy can’t function in an ever-complex world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed an emphasis on partnership with Xi in recent years, as officials in both Moscow and Beijing bristle at U.S. and European sanctions over human rights or other policy disputes. Their alignment reflects a shared faith in autocracy that Biden identified as the cause of a practically existential struggle between governing philosophies.
“I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded: autocracy or democracy? Because that is what is at stake, [and] not just with China,” Biden said. “This is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.”
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Chinese officials have grown more emphatic in their insistence that Beijing adheres to a philosophical system no less valid than the Western model, claiming that their repression of Uyghur Muslims is a legitimate means of protecting the collective Chinese population’s human rights.
“We believe that people and life always come first and safeguard the human rights of the people,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday, according to a transcript. “China adheres to the people-centered philosophy of human rights, and makes increasing people’s sense of gains, happiness and security as the fundamental pursuit of human rights as well as the ultimate goal of national governance.”
Uyghur Muslim activists say Chinese Communist officials are using rape as a method of genocide, with women brutalized inside mass detention camps and forced to “pair up” with Han Chinese men sent to live in their own homes.
“The goal is to ‘Sinicize’ and otherwise exert greater party control over Islam and other religions,” then-U.S. Ambassador Kelley Currie, who served during former President Donald Trump’s tenure as a senior diplomat at the United Nations and to international organizations in Geneva, said in 2019.
Biden acknowledged that democratic systems of governance are being tested by the “fourth Industrial Revolution” — the emergence of artificial intelligence, robotics, and other technology underpinned by ultra-high-speed internet.
“How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology and the environment? How will they do that?” he said. “And are democracies equipped, because all the people get to speak, to compete?”
Xi expects that they will fail, he suggested, based on the theory that decision-making in democratic systems is crippled by disagreement.
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“I’m going to invite an alliance of democracies to come here to discuss the future,” Biden said. “I see stiff competition with China … They have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world, and the most powerful country in the world. That’s not going to happen on my watch.”
