Is Democracy
An Asian Value?
By Ian Buruma
lying into Singapore, Hong
Kong or Kuala Lumpur from London is a sobering experience
for a European visitor. London, the old capital of the
empire, with its crumbling Victorian buildings, homeless
people and potholed streets, appears to be in an advanced
state of decay, while the former colonies are getting richer
and glitzier by the day. They are producing the highest
buildings, the highest technology, the highest statistics of
economic growth, indeed the highest of everything in the
world.
The chrome-and-glass symbols of new affluence are transforming even such relatively poor cities as Shanghai and Jakarta. Renting an office in central Shanghai is already more expensive than in London. The richer parts of Asia are charged with capitalist fervor. Deals are there for the making. All you need is a portable phone, a plausible angle and some get-up-and-go, and you are all set to enjoy the best of times.
That, at any rate, is the way it looks to those who are up, or up and coming. From the perspective of a peasant farmer working on a Bangkok building site or a Filipino sugarcane worker, the world looks a bit different. But there is nonetheless in many parts of Asia a sense of hope, of confidence that things will get better, that with hard work you can be up and coming too. It is difficult to find the same combative spirit in many cities in Europe, or even in the U.S. More and more prophets of doom are predicting that East and West will clash one day, perhaps soon, and that for the first time in centuries, East will end up the victor.
If more Asians are richer than ever before, are they also freer? This is an important question, for the likelihood of future conflicts depends on the answer. And the answer, not surprisingly, is mixed. Some countries have become much richer while making no political progress at all. Indeed, it is sometimes argued that a lack of political freedom is a necessary price to pay for an increase in affluence. It is also argued, mostly by authoritarian leaders and their defenders, that Asians are more interested in economic development than in human rights or political liberties.
Yet it is a fact that the poorest countries in Asia, such as Burma and North Korea, are the least free, while the richest, such as Japan, are the freest. There are others, such as Singapore and Malaysia, that are half free, and others still -- Indonesia, China -- that enjoy economic but not political freedoms. Finally, there is the example of India, whose politics were until recently more liberal than its economics. This is changing, and increasing numbers of Indians are getting wealthier too.
North Korea still represents one extreme, where the state controls every aspect of life. North Koreans cannot own private property, trade freely or sell their skills in an open market. Many North Koreans are reported to be on the verge of starvation -- or actually starving. The other extreme is Japan. Although Japan is not as liberal, politically or economically, as Britain or the U.S., the Japanese are freer than ever before. And they have never been so rich. The case seems to be clear: there is a direct connection between freedom and prosperity.
But if that is so, how do we explain South Korea and Taiwan? Their economies grew fast under military dictators. Democracy is a recent phenomenon in both countries (Taiwanese were able to elect their own President only this year). And how do we explain China? A democracy movement was snuffed out in a bloodbath. Jails and hard-labor camps are filled with political prisoners, and yet China's coastal cities are booming. Some Chinese, indeed many Chinese, have never had it so good. The least one can say is that economic liberties, such as the right to own property or a business, are necessary to create prosperity, and such liberties can exist under dictatorships.
