至于拜登政府，当他召开有110个参会者的民主峰会时，我想给他的主旨演讲提点建议，我当然知道他不会听我的，但我仍希望他会说，“让我们携手设立一些新目标，并以这些目标来衡量民主，看看五到十年后各个国家做的怎么样”。自由主义民主在衰落，出现了问题，但曾经获得过成功，特别是在20世纪的上半叶非常成功，大幅改善了人民生活，以至于很多国家，包括中国，都在冷战后效仿西方的政治实践，比如接受市场经济。
拜登应该说，不是所有的自由主义民主政体都是失败的。如果拜登难以承认中国也有成功之处，有可借鉴之处，觉得这样会让他丢脸，那也有很多成功的自由主义民主国家可供美国借鉴，比如瑞典、挪威、芬兰、新西兰等。这些国家的治理业绩都不错。首先，大的自由主义民主国家可以从这些小型自由主义民主国家身上学到些什么。如果现在他们还不采取行动做出改变，那么他们就危险了，也许自由这个词再也不配放在民主这个词的前面了。
Eric Li:
I want to focus more about democracy, and we'll talk about China a little bit, too. You know, we are having this discussion seems to me at a precarious time for democracy. A lot of rumors swirling around the globe that democracy is in trouble. Kishore just summarized some of the rumors. I hope it's fake news that democracy is in trouble, but the coverage has been relentless and data is mounting.
Freedom House, its most recent report this year, says global decline in democracy has accelerated. In addition, it says U. S. democracy has declined significantly. V-Dem in Sweden, also says their surveys show a global decline in democracy, interestingly, U. S aligned nations declined the most for some reason. Larry diamond, one of the most senior democracy scholars in the world, has been complaining about what he called democratic recession for many years, and recently he has just upgraded that to a crisis level. This year, none other than president Biden implied that the president of China is betting democracy can't keep up with autocracy, and they must prove China wrong. In his address to the first joint session of Congress, he said that this point in history, is about whether or not democracy can function in the 21st century. He said, can we act in the framework needed to compete with autocracy？
And I must say, there's almost like a whiff of despair in such proclamations. It reminds me of China. When I was grown up right after the Culture Revolution, we were in deep trouble，our leaders always saying that time is running out, we needed to prove socialism works better than capitalism. It's a precarious moment, also a confusing moment.
Tunisia, is the country where the Arab Spring began. As we know, before the Jasmine Revolution, it was characterized as a dictatorship. According to the Freedom House, before the Arab Spring in 2010, this country was not democratic. After Jasmine Revolution, the scores have improved to partly free. Then it got even better, all green (free). According to the Freedom house, democracy is triumphant. Yet, the people in Tunisia are miserable, they hate it. As the numbers from Freedom House show improvements, significant improvements, the people of Tunisia are suffering. Their views are opposite. What is going on here？
