Guancha: Recently there has been increased talk of decoupling and confrontation on the global stage. Key to this seems to be America's desire to see all countries adopt a more western model of democracy, of governance, while China believes that development should be or is the most important democratic right of the people. So what do you think of these narratives?
Cristovam Buarque: Thank you very much for this question. I'd like to talk a lot more about that. America is a case of success from the point of view of a rich country, a powerful country, but it's not from the point of view of sustainability, it's not from the point of view of inclusion of the whole population to its benefits. They have a lot of exclusion, especially of a racial orientation: black people have it worse than white people, although there are a lot of poorer white people today. It's a success from the point of view of the nation in the short term, in the past, but they have no reason to be an example to be followed forever by everyone. This is an arrogance, this is an error, a mistake to try to impose not only democracy but also the American way of life. The American way of life cannot be the way of life of humankind in the future, we need other ways to live instead.
In the case of democracy, it was a very important factor to America, to some other countries, but each country has to look for their way of democracy. I put it like that, because democracy in its essence is the way to govern with the people. It's not with the congress, with multiple parties, with elections, with electors as the king, not necessarily.
This is why I was criticized a lot in Brazil, because I wrote a book where I put the idea of the Chinese mode of democracy. People didn't like that in Brazil, many friends of mine were unhappy with this expression that I put there. But I use it, and I would say China has a mode of democracy, which is probably not the way Brazil would use. Brazil has to find a new way, but not necessarily the American or the French or the Japanese way, and they all have different modes of democracy anyways. America has to stop the idea that its democracy is the only way possible. We have other ways of democracy in the world, and China, I think, is trying to find its way.