Thread by @DrRadchenko

nationalinterest.org/feature/russia…. Oh my, the Russian and the Chinese ambassadors publish a joint op-ed against the forthcoming Summit for Democracy. Some juicy reading here, people.

So the basic premise is that the US should not hold such a summit because it will create unneeded ideological dividing lines.

BTW, the notion of "de-ideologizing" international politics goes back to Gorbachev. It was the cornerstone of his new thinking. By this he meant the rejection of Marxist-Leninist dogma that previously underpinned Soviet foreign policy. This here is also straight out of Gorbachev:

This here, though, will make you choke on your coffee. True, everyone knows that China has democracy with Chinese characteristics. It is also known as "dictatorship." Gorbachev flew of the window at this point. Also worth marking this paragraph as "fraud".

The next paragraph extols the virtues of Russia's democracy, which, to be sure, at least has elections (though of course everyone knows that they are fake). I don't mind the Chinese Ambassador lying about the nature of the Chinese system. Do mind the Russian ambassador's lies.

The next paragraph reflects Putin's long-time preoccupation with the "democratisation" of international relations, which is kind of ironic given how desperately Russia hangs on to its Security Council seat, and how it peddles "spheres of influence" in IR.

Everyone knows that fighting corruption is obviously anti-democratic 😂.

The key paragraph. We know that this is what they are most afraid of.

Interesting for a country that just recently annexed a part of another to talk about international law and the purposes of UN Charter.

And the conclusion. In general, as @Nigelgd1 points out, it's not the content that's interesting (we've seen it all before) but it's interesting to see the Russians and the Chinese acting together against "value-based diplomacy."