America’s Political Chaos Is Enviable When You Live in an Autocracy

Michael Schuman: “American democracy can be raucous, unpredictable, even chaotic—as evidenced by President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw his candidacy for president, throwing an already volatile election year into tumult. So it might surprise Americans to know that observers in China’s repressive autocracy find something in all of this to envy.

“‘The fact that unsuitable candidates can withdraw from the election shows that the American democratic system is still vibrant,’ one commentator wrote on the Chinese social-media platform Weibo. The president’s decision ‘shows that his personal honor and disgrace are secondary to the future of the United States.’ Another wrote that ‘regardless of the final election results, the country’s self-correction mechanism is still there, which is good.’

“American politics, even at their most disruptive, have a responsive quality that is key to the country’s soft power—the je ne sais quoi of the U.S. democratic system that upholds American global influence. Chinese leaders know this. They routinely attack Western-style democracy as disorderly and ineffective compared with China’s supposedly stable, harmonious politics. But they have also co-opted the word *democracy* to lend legitimacy to their own system, which they [call](https://english.news.cn/20240311/fce3f178e743435bb228014dd3a6fdc2/c.html) ‘whole-process people’s democracy.’

“In a country where the majority is excluded from an opaque political process that can’t even be discussed publicly without risk, the openness of the American presidential campaign is a topic of fascination.”

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