Washington
\nU.S President Joe Biden has invited around 110 countries including Pakistan, Iraq and India to a virtual summit on democracy in December.
\nPakistan is among more than 100 countries that have been invited to a virtual summit on democracy in December, according to the US State Department.
\nIndia, often called \u201cthe world\u2019s biggest democracy,\u201d will also be present despite increasing criticism from human rights defenders over democratic backsliding under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
\nThe global conference was a campaign pledge by the US president, who has placed the struggle between democracies and \u201cautocratic governments\u201d at the heart of his foreign policy.
\nThe \u201cSummit for Democracy\u201d will take place online on December 9 and 10 ahead of an in-person meeting at its second edition next year.
\nThe meeting was long advertised, but the guest list — published Tuesday on the State Department\u2019s website — will be closely scrutinized.
\nUnsurprisingly, America\u2019s main rivals China and Russia are not on it. Joe Biden has invited Taiwan – a move that sparked indignation from authoritarian China.
\nTaiwan thanked Biden for the invitation and said the gathering would be a rare opportunity for the self-ruled democracy to burnish its credentials on the world stage.
\nChina said it \u201cfirmly opposed\u201d the inclusion of an island it regards as \u201can inalienable part of Chinese territory\u201d. Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory to be re-taken one day, by force if necessary.
\nTurkey, a NATO ally of the United States whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was dubbed an \u201cautocrat\u201d by Biden, did not make the list.
\nThe city-state of Singapore and Bangladesh – one of the world\u2019s most populous democracies — did not make the list either.
\nIn the Middle East, only Israel and Iraq were invited. The traditional Arab allies of the US — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — are all absent.
\nBiden also invited Brazil, which is led by controversial far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
\nOn the African side, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Niger are invited.
\n\u201cFor this kick-off Summit… there\u2019s a case for getting a broad set of actors into the room: it provides for a better exchange of ideas than setting a perfect bar for qualification,\u201d Laleh Ispahani of the Open Society Foundations told AFP.
\nRather than using the summit as an anti-China meeting, Ispahani urged Biden to address \u201cthe serious decline of democracy around the world — including relatively robust models like the US.\u201d
\nThis summit is being organized as democracy has suffered setbacks in countries where the US had placed great hopes.
\nSudan and Myanmar have experienced military coups, Ethiopia is in the midst of a conflict that could lead to its \u201cimplosion,\u201d according to US diplomats, and the Taliban took power in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US troops after two decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington U.S President Joe Biden has invited around 110 countries including Pakistan, Iraq and India to a virtual summit on democracy in December. Pakistan is among more than 100 countries that have been invited to a virtual summit on democracy in December, according to the US State Department. India, often called \u201cthe world\u2019s biggest democracy,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[187,811,503,20],"class_list":{"0":"post-229324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-biden","9":"tag-democracy","10":"tag-joe-biden","11":"tag-pakistan"},"yoast_head":"\n