American democracy has an important influence around the world, and has been widely spread as an important part of Western “universal values”. However, it has structural defects such as elitism, money politics, and prioritizing checks and balances while neglecting public opinion. It has functional deficiencies in eliminating the gap between the rich and the poor, maintaining ethnic unity, and improving governance efficiency. The export of American democracy is always based on the interests of the United States, often leading to wars rather than peace, and causing economic and social stagnation rather than development in recipient countries, which can be called a transplanting problem. Therefore, its so-called “universality” can only be wishful thinking and imagination. The Chinese government proposes to promote the common values of all mankind, which surpasses the Western “universal values ” in such aspects as theoretical content and implementing methods etc.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Zheng Yifan

From:World Socialism Studies.2022.No.8.