Democracy in East Asia : The Democratic Rollback?

The professor of my Government and Politics in South East Asia course came up to me a few weeks back and told me it was her impression that I’ve very opinionated regarding the issue of democratization in East-Asia, especially that of Taiwan’s, and asked me whether I would be willing to review and critic a recent paper published in Foreign Affairs with the title “The Democratic Rollback – The Resurgence of the Predatory State” by Larry Diamond.

First, it should be said that I usually am one of the few to speak out in class and question the theories and thoughts proposed by our professor. Some of the classes’ discussions really bother me, making me feel really uncomfortable. The class where the question of whether East-Asian societies are “suitable” for democracy sounded almost racist to me. What was disturbing was that some of the westerners in class believed that democracy in Taiwan was an oxymoron, some making the odd claim that Thailand is the only representation of something resembling democracy in East-Asia. What was really shocking was that following that some of the Taiwanese students spoke out-loud to support the notion that “Asian social traits” with tendencies towards respect for “hierarchy” and “saving face” make it impossible for Asian nations to have a democracy. Strangely enough, though I’m not Asian or Taiwanese it deeply hurt my feelings. But, they were Taiwanese, and I’m an outsider, do I have the right to correct them about what I perceive their people to be?

Then there were those other fatalistic lectures that spoke of the current struggles of democracy world-wide, questioning whether democracy – especially in this region – would be strong enough to sustain the first sign of economic and safety problems.

With regards to this lecture I’ve already posted the East-Asia Freedom review for 2008, which served as a base for discussion regarding what’s happening with democracy in East-Asia.

Following are my lecture presentation notes :

I’ll summarize the main points that I think are relevant here. I understand that each of those may have a lot of points for and against, and I’ll be happy to discuss those in more detail :

1. I believe in Taiwan’s democracy.
2. I believe that the claim that Asian cultural values (/Arab /African) can not – in their core – coexist with democratic values of promoting human rights and liberties completely inappropriate.
3. I do, however, believe that the essence of democracy can’t be forced upon a nation or a group of people, but should rather be fought for and that people need to find their own path towards their interpretation of how to implement the democratic values to promote their freedom.
4. I think we’re still generally on an up-trend, especially when it comes to Asia. China, Vietnam and other once tightly-controlled countries are gradually opening up with the rise of a middle class following globalization and IT social revolutions. It’s not so much implementing full democracies, but rather having the people in those countries voice their opinions more and enjoy rights and liberties that 10-20 years ago were unheard of. Taiwan and South-Korea are good recent examples of the process.
5. I think that in most cases, the American blunt interference in other countries’ process of finding their democratization path has boomeranged on the entire democratic world. The recent case-studies of US forcing democracy down the Palestinian and Iraqi throats are good examples of how not to promote democracy or rather – worst ways to build long lasting well-functioning non-superficial democracies. I would dare say the US has usually done more damage than good in most of what it was trying to do to promote democratic values.
6. That’s even before going into my strong feelings regarding the double-faced policy (usually economic vs. political) most leading democratic countries have towards other countries, especially around East-Asia.

For those who wish to watch Larry Diamond talk on the subject :

Comments and thoughts?