Georgia’s Lessons on Defending Democracy
In this special edition of Zoom In Zoom Out, Washington-based Wenchi Yu brings us dispatches from global leaders and their takes on Taiwan. The news this week: Georgia’s protests at its legislature and their parallels with Taiwan.
To learn more about how democracies must fight against their own erosion, Wenchi speaks to Batu Kutelia, Georgia's former ambassador to the United States and former deputy defense minister.
To learn more about how democracies must fight against their own erosion, Wenchi speaks to Batu Kutelia, Georgia's former ambassador to the United States and former deputy defense minister.
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00:00Taiwan's story has been an inspiration to democracies around the world, especially for
00:16smaller and younger democratic countries, including Georgia, a country at the intersection
00:22of Europe and Asia.
00:24Georgia is a former Soviet republic that is in the Caucasus Mountains and by the Black
00:28Sea.
00:29As part of the old Silk Road corridor and a vibrant democracy, Georgia has had to manage
00:34its relationships with Russia, Europe and China carefully.
00:38More recently, we've seen major street protests against the Georgian parliament's foreign
00:43influence legislation, which is viewed by the pro-democracy camp as influence from Moscow.
00:49While the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 ended quickly, it was a harbinger of Putin's
00:55ambition to rebuild a Russian empire.
00:58Batu Kutelia is the former Georgian ambassador to the United States, Canada and Mexico from
01:052008 to 2011.
01:07He's also a former deputy defense minister and a former deputy national security council
01:12secretary of Georgia.
01:14Welcome Batu.
01:16Thank you.
01:17Thanks for inviting me.
01:18Nice to be with you.
01:19Well, Taiwan's new president was just inaugurated.
01:23How do Georgians view Taiwan versus China?
01:26Is Taiwan even on the radar of Georgia?
01:30How Georgians are taking the global international relations is that we are a small nation who
01:39has been part of the big totalitarian Soviet Union.
01:43Because of the big geopolitical changes, we regained our independence after the Soviet
01:49occupation of 1921.
01:53And therefore, since then, last 30 years, we are struggling to make ourselves part of
01:59the family of democracies.
02:02And it's been a quite a tough fight.
02:05But also we view ourselves as part of a bigger context that we see.
02:10This is a battle between democracy and authoritarianism.
02:14And that's where I think many Georgians relate themselves to the problems that Taiwan has.
02:20And in the contemporary world and the rules-based international order, the values and principles
02:27of democracy is the most important compass to navigate to if society wants to be part
02:34of the democratic countries and families of democracy.
02:38So that's how we view Taiwan and also that's how we resonate with the problems that every
02:46other freedom-loving nation have regarding very aggressive, predatory neighbors.
02:54I think it would be very helpful for our audience to understand what is going on in Georgia
03:00right now, because Georgia literally is fighting for democracy right now.
03:04I mean, for a while, Georgia was actually a model, maybe 15 years ago, in terms of a
03:10new democracy.
03:11But right now it seems to be facing some challenges and some Russian influence.
03:17After the breakup from the Soviet Union, Georgia was struggling to build an institutional
03:23democracy. And unfortunately, the first few years of Georgia's independence largely was
03:31maybe not successful.
03:32At some point, Georgia ended up to be almost a failed state in the end of the 90s and in
03:39the beginning of 2000s.
03:40And then the Rose Revolution happened, where Georgia people marched in the streets.
03:45And that was a velvet revolution, a peaceful change of power.
03:49And that's when Georgia resurfaced on the international arena as a beacon of democracy,
03:56a beacon of liberty, as how President Bush, when he was visiting in 2005 Georgia, labeled
04:02it. And how Georgia presented itself to the rest of the world in the beacon of democracy
04:07in this world was a very rapid transformation.
04:10We started rapid democratic reforms, institutional building, rule of law, police reform,
04:15economic reform, and detaching ourselves from Russian corrupt and kleptocratic system.
04:22And that also generated a lot of economic growth and public trust to the state and state
04:28institutions. Unfortunately, that was quite irritant to Russia.
04:33And as we know, Russians and every authoritarians are very much irritated to see democracies
04:39in their neighborhood, the areas where they consider part of their spheres of influence,
04:45so-called. And Russia applied different means of coercion toward Georgia.
04:50That was economic embargo.
04:53That was energy embargo.
04:54That was subversion and sabotage.
04:56And eventually in 2008, exactly the time when there was an Olympic Games in China,
05:04Russian military troops invaded Georgia.
05:07And that was a five day war, which resulted that Georgia, 20 percent of Georgian
05:13territory has been occupied by Russian troops.
05:16But our American friends and other democratic allies, they helped us to stop Russians
05:23there and to maintain Georgia state.
05:25So it was an attempt of the land capture by Russia.
05:29And the next attempt from Russia was a state capture instead of land capture.
05:33And this they had arranged through the malign influence, overt and covert operations
05:40orchestrated by Russian made oligarch with the Georgian name Bidzina Ivanishvili, who
05:45managed to get the power in Georgia after 2012 elections.
05:51And then it started slowly eroding the institutional governments.
05:56And the last drop in that 12 year of saga of state capture was adoption of the so-called
06:03agents law, the foreign influence law, which initially was labeled as a foreign agents
06:08law, exactly copycatting the Russian law, which was also a big component in Putin's
06:16method and Kremlin's playbook of consolidating the power.
06:20And that's where Georgian public erupted and went in the streets to protest it.
06:25So that's where we are.
06:26We have huge protests in the streets.
06:28We have now State Department sanctioned all the Georgian political leadership who is in
06:34charge of the country right now.
06:35Law enforcements as well and their family members and Senate is preparing legislation
06:42to sanction further through financial and asset freeze all those who are part of the
06:48authoritarian regime in Georgia.
06:50So that's where we are.
06:52I can't help but having my goosebumps because what Russia was trying to do to Georgia in
07:002008, luckily, I think Georgia was able to fend it off.
07:06But then Russia, what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now, how how do Georgians look at
07:13that war? And are you all worried that Georgia may be the next?
07:20Yeah, Georgia and Ukraine are destined to be on a common path towards European and
07:27Euro-Atlantic integration.
07:28That's why, like Georgian democratic transformation, Ukraine's democratic transformation
07:33also irritates Russia, especially after the Maidan revolution, when Ukraine got rid of
07:40president who was basically Russian and authoritarian and even thuggish.
07:45And it was not a hidden secret because Putin announced its intention of this aggressive
07:52revisionism in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference.
07:56And then slowly started implementing it.
07:58Russia attempted a state capture through installing pro-Russian president, through
08:04proliferating corruption and undermining state institutions.
08:08But this did not work because of the Maidan.
08:11And then Russia decided to do the land capture, as we saw in 2014, first annexing
08:16Crimea and then 2022 full-fledged military operations.
08:21So we Georgians resonate with Ukraine on all the concerns that we have.
08:27Georgia and Ukraine is also an important component of the overall Black Sea region.
08:31And the Black Sea is crucial for the European security, but also for the Eurasian
08:37security, because Georgia and Ukraine really create a very interesting precedent in that
08:43part of the world that through democratic transformation, this part of the world really
08:48can have a vibrant institutional democracy.
08:51And that's exactly what irritates Russia.
08:53So that's why currently in Ukraine, you have one of the biggest foreign legion who
08:58fights with Ukraine are Georgian combatants.
09:03After Georgia has become a democracy, how is the relationship like with China?
09:10First of all, Georgia and Georgian geography is very much determines also our foreign
09:22policy in terms of the defense and security.
09:25Georgia's geography is crucial in currently so-called the Middle Corridor, or call it
09:31an ancient Silk Road or a logistic hub between East and West.
09:36And that definitely means that Georgia's economic function is to be a hub of all this
09:42economic trade, logistics, digital connectivity, energy, minerals, agricultural
09:49products, which is an added value to modernizing the Georgian economy.
09:53And therefore, Georgia's relation with China is determined through that prism that any
10:01economic cooperation that will boost Georgia's geographic role for European economy, for
10:06Central Asian countries, for China and then farther in the Asian region will be important
10:12part of our economic posture, so-called.
10:16But on the other hand, it's also important that Georgia possesses a lot of strategic
10:20infrastructure, for example, ports, railways.
10:23And it's important for us that this strategic infrastructure should be operating under the
10:29transparent laws and without corruption free environment.
10:34So we got quite an alarming development quite recently when we saw that Chinese foreign
10:42policy or economic or trade policy somehow was aligning with the Russian interests as
10:49well to proliferate corruption and through corruption exercise political leverages as
10:54well, because corruption is a lubricant of Russian style state capture.
10:58But of course, other corrupt minded business or government connected entities might benefit
11:04out of it. For example, deep sea port Anaklia, where we see that Chinese companies are
11:10interested to be a part of the government in those tenders.
11:14But currently we have a government which themselves are corrupted.
11:18That's why we are protesting against them.
11:21And there was an interesting turn just recently when Georgian government, current one, who
11:26is very authoritarian, they made anti-Western turn.
11:29What we saw is that Georgian government signed a strategic agreement with China, starting
11:35the visa liberalization with China, and not only for pragmatic reasons, but also to show
11:42to the West that they have other alternatives than democracy and praising Chinese style
11:48of government system.
11:50And that's a very alarming thing, because I think that for Georgia to survive in this
11:54turbulent geopolitical environment is to stay strong and vibrant democracy.
12:00If democracy is eroded, Georgia might become prey of predatory authoritarian policies.
12:07So it sounds like Georgia has a lot of challenges ahead.
12:12But as always, I think Georgian people, their courage and their, you know, wanting their
12:20desire to live in a free country and rule by themselves, I hope will prevail.
12:28I want to thank you so much for explaining those complicated relationships, as well as
12:35the connection to Taiwan, to our audience.
12:39Thank you.
12:40Yes, thank you very much.
12:41Just in conclusion, I think and I listened to the inaugural speech of Taiwan president,
12:47newly elected president.
12:48I think one of the key lines was exactly that we Georgians, as again, small democracies
12:55trying to persuade it's increasing our resilience towards external pressure and hybrid war.
13:02And this resilience cannot be built without building a whole of society approach to it,
13:08consolidating the society, but also cooperating and solidarity between democracies, not
13:15withstanding the geographic proximity between each other.
13:18So I wish Taiwan very success in their democratic endeavor.
13:22And I'm sure that democracy will prevail over authoritarians.
13:26Thank you.
13:28That was Batu Kotelia in conversation with Taiwan Plus News.
13:32We can find more stories from Taiwan and around the world on the Taiwan Plus website.
13:37Thanks for watching and see you next time.
13:45We.
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