Who’s in and who’s out? Biden’s ‘democracy summit’ snubs attract criticism

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The White House is defending President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy from critics and allies who argue the administration is unduly judging other nations without addressing problems at home.

Biden has drawn criticism from countries that failed to score an invite for the Dec. 9-10 video conference, a decision-making process that the White House has been asked numerous times to explain. The Philippines received an invite while Singapore did not. Pakistan, but not Bangladesh, was invited. And while the White House called upon the governments of Colombia, India, and Brazil to join, it did not do so with Bolivia, El Salvador, and others.

Several prominent activists will appear, including Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who will deliver remarks, Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols told Congress last week.

HUNTER BIDEN FIRM INVESTED IN CHINESE COMPANIES SANCTIONED BY U.S.

Biden invited Tsai Ing-wen, the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, the island Beijing claims, and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law. “The voice of Hong Kong will be heard,” Law said, announcing his participation.

Biden has argued that democracies must show they can rival autocracies to deliver for their people and touted his administration’s sweeping legislative bills as evidence of this. One of those, the Build Back Better plan, must still pass the Senate, but the administration’s infrastructure law shows bipartisan cooperation that helps working people, the president has said.

The ultimate criteria for making the summit’s list remains largely a mystery, however. Some countries were added after preliminary lists showed them omitted, prompting spirited lobbying campaigns.

A source close to the government of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, which failed to score a seat on the video conference, dismissed as pitiful Guaido’s eleventh-hour summons.

“That’s like getting a pity invite to a wedding that’s less than a week away,” this source said. “Will Guaido have to stop and pick up a bag of ice along the way? How will Guaido attend if [Venezuela] shuts off his internet?”

Amid reports of Guaido’s waning influence, questions remain over Washington’s ability to pick good allies abroad.

The White House defended the invite list Monday, stressing that it would include leaders with a diverse range of experiences and should be viewed as “an opportunity to continue to strive to do better.”

“Inclusion or an invitation is not a stamp of approval on [a country’s] push to democracy nor is exclusion a stamp of the opposite of that, of disapproval,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. “It’s just meant to have a broad scope of leaders, a broad scope of private sector and civil society officials represented.”

Some Biden boosters have argued that the president “needs to start at home,” targeting “illiberalism” by pushing a divisive voting reform agenda, “if need be by modification of the anti-democratic Senate filibuster.” Possible term limits for Supreme Court justices, an overhaul of the criminal justice system, and executive branch ethics reform are other prominent issues.

Asked what the United States needed to do better, Psaki said one of Biden’s top priorities upon taking office was “restoring trust and faith” in government and institutions, including by addressing corruption. “We just put out a major report on corruption today in advance of the democracy summit,” Psaki said.

Previewing the report, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo called corruption “corrosive” to public trust and institutions and, ultimately, democracy itself.

In addition to tax shelters, offshore financial centers, and real estate, the report identified digital assets and art sales as possible areas of illicit finance.

“The markets for art and antiquities — and the market participants who facilitate transactions — are especially vulnerable to a range of financial crimes,” the report said, pointing to the “[b]uilt-in opacity, lack of stable and predictable pricing, and inherent cross-border transportability of goods sold.”

Such features “make the [art] market optimal for illicit value transfer, sanctions evasion, and corruption,” it added.

Concerns surrounding Hunter Biden’s business dealings are one such area where fears of undue influence have prominently arisen before and since Biden took office in January. The president’s son’s firm invested in Chinese companies sanctioned by the U.S. Meanwhile, ethics experts have repeatedly demanded transparency from the White House over Hunter Biden’s art sales.

The younger Biden’s gallerist has valued his work at up to $500,000 per painting while agreeing to keep the buyers’ identities private, a measure that obscures the deals from public scrutiny. Hunter Biden is also still under federal investigation.

Asked whether the White House would commit to providing details around the younger Biden’s recent sale of a company stake in China, including the buyer and dollar amount, Psaki said Monday that the inquiry did not fall under the administration’s jurisdiction, telling reporters that Hunter Biden is “not an employee of the federal government.”

“I’d point you to his representatives,” Psaki said.

Questions over the administration’s decision to exclude from the summit NATO allies Turkey and Hungary remained largely unanswered, though there are through lines among invitees that highlight the administration’s priorities.

The U.S. is directing more resources to the Indo-Pacific, part of an organizational pivot, exemplified through a recent nuclear submarine pact with Australia that deeply angered France, America’s oldest ally. Officials have said privately the deal was necessary as China demonstrates increasing defense capabilities.

“It will be critical for us to have a long list of partners who we can rely on in the region,” said Carisa Nietsche, the associate fellow for the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. “The Philippines is one of many there.” Until recently, CNAS was led by Biden’s top adviser on Indo-Pacific affairs.

Biden’s decision to leave Turkey, a NATO member, off the list, sends a different message, namely that Biden is displeased by Ankara’s recent actions, including the purchase of an S-400 missile system from Russia over Washington’s objections.

“This is a clear signal to Turkey that while you are a NATO partner, you are not a Democratic partner,” she said, calling the defense purchase “probably one of the biggest thorns” in the relationship.

A more selective list “could help galvanize movement toward more democratic reforms in [absent] countries,” Nietsche said, “but also potentially as a little leverage to compel some of these countries to undertake reforms.”

The summit prompted a rare joint statement from the two geopolitical powers omitted, China and Russia, who criticized the event’s “Cold War mentality.”

Ambassadors Anatoly Antonov of Russia and Qin Gang of China said the summit would “stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world, creating new ‘dividing lines.’”

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Responding to questions Monday, Psaki suggested the message was more akin to a carrot for the autocracies Biden paints as rivals and democracies with work to do.

“The president feels that democracy is always a work in progress,” she said. “You’re always trying to make yourself better to lead better, to push other countries to be better, and this is an opportunity to do exactly that.”

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