Jonas Parello-Plesner
Executive director, Alliance of Democracies Foundation
Copenhagen, Denmark
Joe Biden is right to convene a summit of democracies at a time when autocracies are on the offensive against the free world.
China is picking off democratic states with strategic investments and trying to mould the rules-based order in its image of state subsidies and authoritarian tech. Russia is sparking disorder around the free world with disinformation campaigns, election meddling and corrupt money flows.
If the free world does not show unity, we will continue to dissemble. And a free world divided will not stay free forever.
In her op-ed “Biden’s ‘summit of democracies’ won’t work” (December 8), Shada Islam argues that interests and values often do not align across the free world. This is true, of course — and one of the problems that such a summit would address.
Democratic leaders’ short-term economic priorities have led to dependency. Beijing has exploited divisions between governments when it comes to state-subsidized 5G, for example, or the Belt and Road Initiative and one-sided supply chains.
That is precisely why we need a joined-up response from democracies. The G20, which the author highlights as the gold standard of efficient international cooperation, is not apt for the job. It is stocked with autocratic spoilers.
To counter threats from autocratic powers, we need common initiatives that make the democratic path more economically attractive and enable us to forge common initiatives on 6G, quantum computing and artificial intelligence to serve the cause of freedom. This will be difficult, but the alternative is worse: that tomorrow’s technology serves the cause of Chinese authoritarianism.
Ultimately, we can’t solve election interference with the Russians in the room, or set digital standards while China watches on. Nor should we fall into the trap of seeing a preference for democracy as antagonistic to multilateralism.
A summit of democracies would also give voice to activists fighting for democracy around the world, as in Hong Kong, Venezuela and Belarus. Their fight should be our fight, and we must find ways across the free world to support them.
President-Elect Biden opened the first Copenhagen Democracy Summit and co-founded our Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity to curb election meddling. He knows what allies can do when they work together and he is right to rally the democratic world. A global summit is a first step to putting freedom back on the front foot.
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 
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