The past three decades in China have witnessed an extremely complicated love-and-hate relationship between the Chinese people and the US government's promotion of the United States as the role model for democracy.

What do the Chinese, especially the younger generation, think of US democracy? Do they believe that the US is a democracy?

The popular and influential Tianya Forum is where Chinese youths discuss such questions online, and an examination of the top 100 posts on US democracy, ranked according to the total number of responses each post received, reveals a clear division on the image of the US in China.

According to online Chinese critics of US democracy, the US government has time and time again practiced "double-standard" in its diplomacy, using democracy as a "diplomatic instrument" to maintain its hegemony in international relations. This, according to young Chinese netizens, demonstrates the hypocrisy of the US government.

In addition, the US government claims to promote democracy and freedom around the world. However, many young netizens believe that its frequent imperialist interferences and invasions abroad have achieved nothing except "exporting poverty, wars and national disintegration" to the developing world.

What about the US political system? Chinese netizens critical of the US insist its democracy is superficial and deceptive because the two major parties are actually under the control of religious groups, the military-industrial complex or other special interests.

Many see US politics as corrupt and its democracy at the mercy of those who have the most money.

They say that the US political system has been inefficient and ineffective in dealing with the global economic crisis and that the widespread "economic inequality" in the country reveals that the capitalist system is unjust.

Of course, there are also netizens that support the view that the US is the most exemplary model of democracy.

However, one thing is clear: the US system has both its strengths and weaknesses, and China should not blindly try to copy it or reject it.

Sun Yuxiao, via e-mail

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(China Daily 02/17/2012 page9)