A protester breaking into the US Capitol building is captured on a screenshot in a video feed from NBC news seen in Arlington, Virginia, the United States, Jan 6, 2021.Photo:Xinhua

The failure of the US to combat the COVID-19 epidemic and the Trump phenomenon are two vivid examples of the failure and incompetence of the American democratic political system, Chinese experts pointed out on Friday, slapping the so-called "Summit for Democracy" for being a hypocritical subject.

The American democratic political system shows its great limitations in the face of huge risks such as the COVID-19 epidemic. The epidemic was used as a chip for the political gain of the two political parties and their huge divergence has eventually led to a total disregard for the safety of the American public, leading US with the most powerful medical resources to be defeated by the virus, Chang Jian, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Nankai University, said at a seminar held by Shandong University on human rights on Friday.

Being the superpower with excellent medical resources, the US has degenerated into the worst in handling epidemic, with more than 50 million of its own citizens confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 and over 800,000 people dead as of November. The fatalities are even more than the number of people who died in the two world wars and the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, Chang said.  

The Trump phenomenon is another typical case that demonstrates a setback or a crisis for the Western democratic system, Cui Hanyu, a doctoral student from the law school of Shandong University, pointed out. Trump's coming into power and his subsequent jaw-dropping domestic and foreign policies could be said to be closely related to the democratic crisis in the US, characterized by the extreme divergence between political parties and popularity of populism, he said. 

The seminar - held by Shandong University that gathered dozens of leading Chinese experts on human rights - is of great significance when the US is holding a so called democracy summit to cover real problems of Western democracy, and serves US strategy to add new tensions with China.

Democracy is the right of the people in every country, rather than the prerogative of a few nations. The fact that the US is gathering representatives from a few countries and regions and even some extremists is hypocritical, Chang said. 

The US is in no position to be "a champion of democracy" or to force other countries to adopt democratic institutions or policies according to its standards, said experts, adding that US foreign policy with the pretext of "democracy" has long been a poor record.

It is undemocratic to measure the colorful political system of the world with a single standard or to examine the colorful political civilization of mankind with monotonous views, Qian Jinyu, executive deputy director for Human Rights Research Center at the Northwest University of Political Science and Law, said at the seminar. 

Fan Jinxue, a professor from Koguan School of Law at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said China's whole-process people's democracy avoids the drawbacks of capitalist countries that center on elections. Democratic power of citizens is embodied in the whole process of public policy decision-making. People can participate throughout the whole decision-making process, fulfilling their rights to know, to participate, and to supervise, Fan said. 

The white paper titled "China: Democracy That Works" released on December 4 pointed out China's whole-process people's democracy is a model of socialist democracy that covers all aspects of the democratic process and all sectors of society. It is true democracy that works, the white paper noted.

Whether it is workable for the country and fully used by people is the standard for a true democracy. China's democratic governance has enabled the people to enjoy more freedom and rights and a better life, Fan noted.