October 02, 2018
How Russia and China Undermine Democracy
Russian and Chinese actions are converging to challenge the U.S.-led global order. Last month, China joined Russia in conducting the latter’s largest military exercises since the Cold War. As the war games kicked off, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared pancakes and vodka in Vladivostok in yet another public display of their rapport. In addition to enhanced military cooperation, the two nations’ collaboration in international institutions and remarkably frequent high-level engagements reflect their growing agreement about how the world should be ordered. Central in this shared view is the belief that weakening democracy can accelerate the decline of Western influence and advance both Russia’s and China’s geopolitical goals.
Russia and China view efforts to support democracy—especially U.S. efforts—as thinly veiled attempts to expand U.S. influence and undermine their regimes and have consistently sought to counter Western democracy promotion. These efforts are not new, but they are changing in scope and intensity. Since 2014, Russia in particular has been taking the fight to Western democracies. Because Moscow and Beijing gauge their power in relation to the United States, they view weakening Western democracy as a means of enhancing their own standing. The Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, was intended, at least in part, to tarnish U.S. democracy and allow Moscow to claim that Washington has no right telling other nations how to conduct their elections. For their part, Chinese leaders have sought to gradually weaken democratic norms as a way to enhance the international legitimacy of China’s Leninist-capitalist brand of governance.
Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
The Return of Diplomacy to Great Power Competition
On the surface, great power competition often seems driven by economic and military conflict, but diplomacy has always been central to great powers' engagement with the world....
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
What’s Driving President Trump’s New Confidence in Ukraine’s War Effort
President Trump dramatically declared on social media that he now believes that Ukraine can reclaim all its land from Russia, which he described as a paper tiger. From the Ova...
By Richard Fontaine
-
Moldova Chooses Its Future with William Hill and Laura Thornton
On September 28th, Moldovan voters went to the polls in parliamentary elections to choose between competing visions for their country's future. Despite intense efforts by the ...
By Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Jim Townsend
-
Europe Must Counter Cheap Drones with Cheap Solutions, Ex-NATO Commander Says
NATO must find cheaper ways to counter the growing threat of Russian drone incursions, the former Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, has said. Speakin...
By General Philip M. Breedlove