WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden will open his second Democracy Summit on Wednesday with a pledge to invest $690 million to promote democracy around the world.
The US government is trying to use today’s two summits to discuss ways “to use technology for democracy and not against it,” according to an official source. Some 120 world leaders have been invited to the event.
Biden frequently argues that populist nations are at historical crossroads where they show themselves to be better than authoritarian systems. The peaks, which were among his campaign promises, became a key part of his administration’s efforts to build alliances with popular nations and to persuade authoritarian nations to implement some modest reforms.
“Establishing transparent and accountable government, governed by consensus, is a fundamental imperative of our time,” Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said in a joint statement before the summit’s opening.
Funding for improving democracies is aimed at programs to support a free and independent press, fight corruption, improve human rights, promote democracy-enhancing technologies, and hold free and fair elections.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US government has also reached an agreement with 10 other countries on how to use surveillance and surveillance technology.
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This agreement comes after Biden signed an executive order a few days ago that limits the use by the government of commercial spyware that has been used in other countries to monitor human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.
Turbulent 15 months have passed since the first Democracy summit in December of 2021. Many countries have emerged from the coronavirus pandemic and Russia has made its invasion of Ukraine, the largest war in Europe since World War II. Biden has also had spats with China and has announced that Beijing is increasing its economic and military power in the Indo-Pacific region and other parts of the world.
Contributors to this were Munir Ahmed Mutual in Islamabad; Tom Verdin in Sacramento, Calif.; Daniel Politi in Buenos Aires and Colleen Long in Washington.
