This really interesting article published by The Hill with disclaimer is by Dov S. Zakheim. Here is an excerpt:

Russia and China are both very upset that they were not included in President Biden’s Summit for Democracy. China, in particular, is miffed because, as a recently released official government publication put it, China is “a democracy that works.” Of course, what passes for Chinese democracy is no different from Soviet democracy under Joseph Stalin. The Soviet dictator considered one of his great triumphs to be the 1936 Soviet constitution, which outdid all other democracies in guaranteeing a host of rights to its citizens. The document was finalized and released just as Stalin’s Great Purge was getting under way. China’s democracy would include persecution — and worse — of Uyghurs.

Russian and Chinese objections to the summit may be risible, but the summit’s actual guest list raised more questions than it answered. According to the Department of State’s official list, Angola, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were among the invitees. Yet Freedom House’s latest Democracy Index assigns all three countries among the lower of its Global Freedom Scores. In particular, the DRC ranks so low that it falls below such putative democratic stalwarts as Kazakhstan, Turkey and Uganda; it shares its ranking with Russia. The DRCs very name is itself a giveaway — no country that has included “democratic” in its name actually has been a democracy. Ironically, President Biden in his opening remarks to the summit specifically noted the Freedom House finding that democracy is under threat worldwide. 

Even more problematic than the presence of the aforementioned countries at the summit is the list of countries that Washington classed with Russia and China and were deemed unfit to be invited. Topping the list was Singapore, whose Freedom House ranking was higher than all of the aforementioned invitees, as well as those of Pakistan, Nigeria and Lebanon. Indeed, Singapore’s ranking is equal to that of Niger and Kenya, both of which did merit invitations. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh likewise did not make the State Department’s cut, though they, like Singapore, rank higher on the Freedom House list than several summit participants

Read the full article through this link.