Chinese Ambassador Accuses the US of Being a Failing Democracy

An American flag is displayed on the Huntington Beach pier in Calif., on June 15, 2021. Mario Tama/Getty Images

The Chinese ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, has sent a letter full of criticism of the U.S.-led democratic world to New Zealand MPs while claiming that China had a different system of democracy.

Wang accused the United States of having a sense of superiority and spreading “false” narratives of democracy versus authoritarianism.

He claimed that countries with flaws had “little credibility” to lecture others and alleged that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pursued the values of freedom, democracy, and human rights.

He said the CCP would be “more than happy” to share its values and perspectives with anyone interested but hated to be preached to and have “others,” referring mainly to the United States, “impose” its values on the CCP.

Along with his three-page letter, he attached two reports by the Chinese Foreign Ministry titled “The State of Democracy in the United States: 2022” and “U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils,” both of which accused American democracy of being a failed system and dividing the world.

The first report, published on March 20, makes numerous accusations against the United States, including that it is splitting the world into two camps, democracies and non-democracies, and supplying arms to Ukraine for money.

Quoting Belarussian, Singaporean, and Russian state media, it said that American democracy was failing and was no longer the “gold standard.” Belarus and Singapore are closely linked to the Russian and Chinese regimes.

It reiterated that the CCP saw former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as a “major political provocation” that was made to supposedly challenge CCP sovereignty.

It also dubbed the AUKUS pact as a “racist clique” where the United States has “ganged up” with Australia and the United Kingdom. The Quad and Five Eyes are other “values-based alliances” that were “cobbled together” by the United States.

U.S. President Joe Biden (C) participates in a trilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) during the AUKUS summit at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, Calif., on March 13, 2023. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

In the second report, published on Feb. 20, it said that the United States put “staggering amounts” of funds into setting up media in socialist countries to support its “ideological infiltration” and broadcast “inflammatory propaganda” for democracy, freedom, and human rights.

“[The CCP] opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs,” it said.

Luke De Pulford, the spokesperson for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told The Age that the letter was counter-productive.

“Between the vitriol of the wolf warriors and the unhinged propagandising of these letters, Beijing is giving us a masterclass in bad diplomacy,” he said.

CCP’s Global Aggression

Wang’s letter comes ahead of New Zealand’s general election, scheduled for Oct. 14.

Reports by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have indicated there was a campaign by the CCP to disrupt Canada’s 2021 national election and have politicians critical of Beijing defeated.

Similarly, during the 2022 Australian federal election, an internal Liberal Party review found that its opponents pushed the perception that its strong criticism of the CCP extended to the general Chinese community, leading to the most significant swings against the Liberals in communities with high Chinese populations.

Meanwhile, the CCP has incrementally increased its military presence in the South China Sea over the years, including its militarised artificial islands and claiming its airspace.

The United States, Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam have all rejected the CCP’s claims regarding sovereignty over waters in the South China Sea.

The Chinese regime is also allegedly indoctrinating Australian students with CCP propaganda through Chinese language schools and educational materials.

“Students from language schools participate in various winter or summer camps [promoted by the CCP] and receive a lot of CCP propaganda during the trip,” said Bin Lin, the principal of the Academy of Chinese Culture he founded.

Lin previously told The Epoch Times that since most teachers were from China, it was natural that they would educate students in the only way they were familiar with—the CCP way.

Democracy Summit

The letter was sent just prior to the second Summit for Democracy hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden.

“Today, we can say, with pride, democracies of the world are getting stronger, not weaker,” Biden said at the summit. “Autocracies of the world are getting weaker, not stronger. That’s a direct result of all of us.”

It cited the November midterm elections as a sign of how voters were increasingly “rejecting the voices of extremism.”

Meanwhile, in his opening remarks, Biden said the United States would spend $690 million to strengthen democracy programs.

“When we gathered here in December of 2021, the sentiment in too many places around the world was that democracies’ best days were behind us,” Biden said.

“But this year, we can say there’s a different story to tell, thanks to the commitment of leaders gathered today and the persistence of people in every region of the world, demanding their rights be respected and voices be heard.

South Korea will host the next summit, the White House announced in a statement.

Cindy Li and Jeff Louderback contributed to this report.