DEMOCRATIC VALUES AND COLD WAR

This is my speech at the closing ceremony  of the Third International Forum on Democracy: The Shared Human Values

The concept of "democratic values" has become a "soft power" in the arsenal of the West since the beginning of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, China and other countries of the socialist camp. Accusations of a lack of democracy were reinforced by the creation of "democratic" military blocs, the introduction of trade blockades, and information wars against recent allies in the fight against fascism. The aggressive imposition of "universal values" based on the concept of democracy intensified with Moscow's transition to a policy of "peaceful coexistence" with the West and, especially, with the beginning of a policy of "new thinking". Liberal values have inevitably penetrated China together with Western capital and technology since the beginning of the policy of "reform and openness." The Soviet Union collapsed to the accompaniment of slogans about the “struggle for democracy”, against "one-party dictatorship" and "human rights". In China, the ruling party faced the youth who fell under the influence of the concept of democracy and saved the country from a similar fate through decisive measures by experienced leaders.

The victory in the cold war against the socialist camp did not lead to the end of the application of the concept of democracy in the West's desire to secure full world domination. To consolidate the unipolar world order, new concepts such as the "rules-based world order" were also added to it. In order to eliminate the remaining and emerging new centers of deviation from the norms of Western democracy, the technology of "color revolutions" was invented. It has been successfully used in Eastern Europe, in some post-Soviet countries, the Arab world, and Latin American countries.

The "old but formidable weapon" in the form of "democratic values" came in handy again with the resumption of the Cold War. It began after President Putin's refusal to accept Russia's subordinate role in the unipolar world at the Munich Conference in 2007. In 2009, the Chinese leadership refused the US president's offer to become a "younger brother" in the G-2 tandem (Chimerica)  to control the planet. Since that time, the "containment" of Russia and China has dramatically increased with the help of new and old tools, including the concept of "democratic values". It was then that the building of two fronts of the new global Cold War began – the Western and the Eastern.

The advance of the NATO military bloc to the very borders of Russia led to the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The renewal of anti-Chinese military alliances and the creation of new AUCUS-type blocs and the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral agreement have already led to a sharp increase in tensions in the Pacific. The smoldering hotbed of separatist mutiny in Taiwan and the new hotbed of conflict being created in the Philippines are designed to repeat the "Ukrainian scenario". It is worth recalling the creation of coalitions by the United States to contain "Chinese communism" in the past decades. This is the Korean War of 1950-1953, when troops from 15 countries fought with Chinese people's volunteers. This is the Vietnam War of 1965-1973, in which the troops of 8 countries participated under American command.

The build-up of military potential and the tightening of economic sanctions on the Western and Eastern fronts of the new Cold War are accompanied by the use of "soft power". Using the popularity of the ideas of democracy in world, the United States monopolized the right to determine whether certain states belong to the number of "democratic" or designate them as "authoritarian". This was especially evident in the holding of the Summit for Democracy in December 2021, designed to unite the world community against Russia and China as the main "autocratic powers". Refusal to participate in the fight against "autocracies" threatens not only to be enrolled on the "wrong side of history", but also consequences in the field of trade, finance and even "color revolutions" or direct military intervention.

By monopolizing the rights to the concept of "democratic values", the West has actually robbed the rest of humanity, which for centuries has created its own ideas and forms of democracy in accordance with the conditions and traditions of its own civilizations. The words "demos" (community) and "kratos" (domination) came to the world from Ancient Greece. Variants of the democracy system created there have spread across Europe in a variety of forms. So, in the Novgorod Republic in the North of Russia, already at the beginning of the X11 century, the representative authority of the "Veche" effectively operated. It elected the head of the executive branch of the "Kniaz” (prince), who performed the duties of a military commander and supreme judge.

Other forms of democracy flourished in the German city-states, as well as in Holland and England. From there, together with the "pilgrims", they were brought to North America. A specific political culture has gradually developed there, which can be called "democracy with American characteristics." However, it was this variety that was proclaimed the standard after the end of World War II. Everything that does not fit into this "Procrustean bed" is subject to ruthless amputation.

The current state of "democratic values" in the West resembles the portrait of Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's book. The attractive image of an eternally young handsome man is accompanied by a hideous authentic face hidden from prying eyes, on which all the vices and crimes of the hero of the narrative leave traces. The vices and crimes of the West do not need to be enumerated. But there is a need to review other forms of democratic systems that are increasingly emerging and successfully functioning in the world.

The most obvious example is China. 1400 million people live under a system that is officially called the "system of integral people's democracy." The concept of democracy came to China only at the beginning of the XXth century. Even the terms "democracy", "republic", "constitution" had to be borrowed from another hieroglyphic language – Japanese, where liberal-bourgeois reforms began several decades earlier. The terms and mechanisms of socialist democracy came from the Soviet Union, where activists of the Kuomintang and Gongchandang (Communist Party) parties studied in special educational institutions in the 20s, including the future "architect of reforms and openness" Deng Xiaoping and Chiang Kai-shek's son named Jiang Jin-go, the future leader of Taiwan. The Sinification of the theory and practice of democracy took several decades and went through very painful phases. However, the result provided the conditions for a "Chinese economic miracle" and made China the second economy in the world.

A specific feature of the present Chinese system of democracy is the emphasis on ensuring, first of all, the economic and social interests of the entire nation, and not its groups of interests or individuals. This was clearly manifested in the nomination in 2012 of a long-term plan for the "Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation." The plan conceived by Chairman Xi Jinping should be completed by 2049. But the results already achieved can be called phenomenal. The entire economy is being turned from servicing foreign markets to its own consumers. Their number has grown due to the eradication of poverty – 100 million people no longer live below the poverty level. The middle class is expanding – 400-500 million people. In the near future, about 300 million migrant workers who come from villages with an excess population to cities to work will receive a “hukou” city residence permit. Registration will allow them to use medical and educational institutions, facilitate the relocation of families and the purchase of housing. The real guarantee of human rights to a decent life is reflected in such phenomena of the last decade as the lifting of restrictions on the birth of a second child, in a nationwide campaign to improve the environment. The rights of the "little man" are becoming increasingly difficult to violate due to the uncompromising fight against corruption and abuse of power. Having achieved accelerated reforms of a new quality of life in the first 10 years under the slogan of creating a "society of average well-being" (Xiao Kang), the ruling Communist Party put forward the slogan of achieving "universal well-being" (Gong Tong Fu Yu). Its main successes will be visible by 2035. By this time, a lot of problems will have to be solved.

It is characteristic how the Chinese themselves define these problems. On the eve of the recent session of the National People's Congress (Parliament), electronic media conducted a survey of 6.15 million netizens. Among the 10 main tasks of the society were named compliance with laws, employment, decent medical care, high-quality economic development based on modern technologies.

The model of society built in China includes, in addition to Chinese democracy, a unique economic system combining a planned socialist with a market capitalist one under the control of the Communist Party. This model has been called "socialism with Chinese characteristics of the new era." A couple of years ago, Chairman Xi Jinping called it a "new model of human civilization." China has indeed gone beyond the classic Marxist sequence of formations: "feudalism-capitalism-socialism." However, China is not boasting of its new role in the history of mankind. The same Xi Jinping specifically stressed that his country is not going to impose its development model on other countries, although it is ready to share its experience.

It seems to me that in the foreseeable future, the monopoly of "democratic values" in the American presentation will be definitively violated not only by Chinese democracy, but also by the democratic systems of Russia, India, Brazil and other "locomotives" of global development that have formed over the past decades. Together, they will find ways to exist and coexist without trying to establish hegemony, assert their superiority and belittle other systems. In the new multipolar geopolitical and geo-economic world, the combination of the systems of democracy can be called "multidemocracy". It is "multidemocracy" that can become the ideological basis of the Community of the common destiny of mankind.

Yuri Tavrovsky, Head of the analytical center "Russian Dream and Chinese Dream"