Crumbling democracy Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The second US-organized Summit for Democracy will conclude on March 30 local time. It is a gathering of like-minded countries set to declare their allegiance to "democratic values" and defiance to the forces of "autocracy" supposedly threatening them - although not named, strongly implied to be led by China and Russia.

Technically, the summit is co-hosted with a country from every continent: Costa Rica from South America, the Netherlands from Europe, Zambia from Africa and South Korea for Asia. This "regional diversity" is supposed to "[reinforce] the truth that a safer and fairer world grounded in democratic values is both a shared aspiration and a shared responsibility."

The gathering is virtual, and quite appropriately so - because everything about it is fake, from the token hosts to the values they purport to champion: "transparent, responsive, and accountable governance; rule of law; and respect for human rights." Just about the only thing that's authentic is the US commitment to "leading the world" - toward a "peaceful, prosperous" future, according to the State Department. 

There is no need to discuss the "peaceful" part, what with the long list of US military adventures since the World War II. As for prosperity, the US-led embargo against Russia misleadingly described as "sanctions" is currently crushing the economies of its European allies. It was also imposed unilaterally, without any due process - so much for "rule of law" - and increasingly in violation of the very property rights supposedly sacred in the West. The recent wave of bank failures in the US and Europe merely underscores the point.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires non-governmental organizations receiving 20 percent or more income from abroad to register as foreign agents and face fines for violations, is fine when applied in the US, even against media such as CGTN, but if any other country dares ask the US-funded NGOs to show some receipts, democracy itself is in mortal danger! So much for accountability, then.

As for human rights, the US itself considers "life" to be the foremost of them, right in its declaration of independence. Yet when El Salvador sought to protect the lives of its citizens by locking up thousands of violent members of the MS-13 international criminal syndicate, Washington was suddenly very concerned about human rights - of the murderers!

"Where were you when they were killing our children?" asked President Nayib Bukele. Well, El Salvador used the American dollar and sent migrant laborers to the US to work for low wages, so Washington didn't mind. When Bukele changed that, and vowed he would be everyone's friend by no one's vassal, suddenly there was a problem.

Time and again, wherever you go, it's the same story. Every country has the right to choose - but only if it makes the "correct" choice. Otherwise it is declared an "autocracy" that violates "human rights" and needs some "freedom," preferably delivered by US-funded NGOs. 

It's blindingly obvious that all this talk of democracy is but an attempt by Washington to muster up more legitimacy for its heavy-handed actions around the world. The rhetoric about "international community" doesn't quite work anymore when it's clear that it covers just NATO, Australia, South Korea and Japan.

In today's world, "democracy" has basically come to mean whatever the US government says it means. That Washington has to hype a virtual summit to reinforce that message, shows that fewer countries are willing to put up with it.

The author is a Serbian-American journalist. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn