Not long before the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing. In a classic example of vice paying tribute to virtue, their post-summit communiqué spoke eloquently of the importance of democracy. They also insisted that individual states must find a form of democracy appropriate to their needs; in their case, one compatible with eliminating opponents and controlling the judiciary and the media to ensure they can stay in power for the indefinite future.
All this is far removed from the Western ideal of a liberal democracy, in which contrary views are expressed openly, governments are challenged and voters decide in free elections whether leaders stay in office. Alarmingly it is the Putin-Xi model that appears to be on the rise. Xi inherited an authoritarian system and made it more so, but Putin took a country apparently becoming more liberal and turned it into an autocracy.
