Challenges of Promoting Liberalism in Asia
By Dr. Ronald Meinardus'* notes for a presentation at the Democratic Pacific Assembly, "The Common Future of the 21st Century Pacific," Grand Hotel, Taipei, Taiwan, 19-21 September 2003



The promotion of liberalism is problematic for a number of reasons – political, economic, sociological, cultural and historical. It becomes even more complex in an international, cross-border setting.

To begin with, the definition of “liberalism” is anything but clear. While in Europe, the place of origin of liberal thoughts, liberalism is associated with a set of policies that elevate the promotion and protection of the freedom of the individual to the center of all societal considerations, liberalism in the United States is associated with the expansion of the welfare state and “big government”. In economic terms, European liberals tend to be free-marketers, whereas in the U.S., they often favour state interventions in economic matters.

Despite this confusion over the defining elements of the liberal ideology and its policy manifestations, we may turn to an Asian statesman for a definition of liberalism that should be acceptable to all sides.

In a classical manner, the former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung stated that “democracy and the market economy are two sides of a coin.” For me, this is the shortest (and therefore best) definition of the concept of liberalism. In his inauguration speech in 1998, the Korean statesman also said, “Every nation that has embraced both democracy and a market economy has been successful.” ¹

In the past decades, political liberalism (or liberal democracy) has made great advances in all parts of the world. This general trend clearly also applies to the Asian region, as documented inter alia in the annual “Freedom in the World” surveys published by the Heritage Foundation:

“In the Asia-Pacific region, only 8 states (a quarter of the region’s total) were rated Free in 1972, while 13 were Partly Free, and 11 Not Free. Today, there are 18 Free countries (an increase of 21 percent from the region’s total 30 years ago), while the number of Partly Free and Not Free states is 10 and 11 (a decrease of 15 and 6 percent), respectively.” ²

Interestingly, in the Heritage Foundation-survey, the Asia-Pacific is today rated as the third most “free” region of the world after the Americas and Western Europe, and ahead of the states of the former Soviet Union, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East/North Africa.

With regards to the “Economic Freedom of the World”, the annual reports of the Canadian Fraser Institute, an independent economic research organization, has become an important point of reference. In its most recent global survey, two East Asian economies once more take the lead in the international ratings. They are Hong Kong and Singapore (followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Switzerland and Ireland). The rankings of other East Asian countries are as follows: Japan (24th), Taiwan (30th), Philippines and South Korea (38th), Malaysia (51st), Thailand (56th), Indonesia (77th) and China (101st). ³

From a liberal perspective, these data on the state of economic and political freedom in the Asian region point to positive trends. The expansion of democracy and the market economy are good news for the peoples of the region. It is not only a liberal conviction but also an empirical fact that economic and political liberalization has created wealth and thus alleviated poverty. “The truth about market liberalisation and economic growth is not that it increases inequality, nor that it hurts the poor: just the opposite. The truth is that some large parts of the poor world are pulling themselves out of poverty while others are not.” ⁴ Importantly, those that are pulling themselves out are following the liberal paradigm. This is an ongoing – and highly dynamic – social process of revolutionary dimensions, if viewed in an historical context.

Still, it would be inaccurate to describe today’s East Asian societies as liberal paradises. In some cases, just think of Burma or North Korea, two of the worst dictatorships in the world, not even lip-service is being paid to democratic and/or economic freedoms. While in many other countries in the region significant progress in a liberal sense has been achieved, political and economic liberalization may be called a never-ending process.

In East Asia, as in other parts of the world, several forces are involved in the promotion of liberalism. Basically, we should differentiate between domestic and outside forces. Domestically, the following actors come to mind: civil society organizations and political parties, enlightened governments and parliaments, the business community and trade unions, the media and last but not least religious groups. In this age of globalization, where domestic affairs are increasingly influenced also by international factors, the outside actors have come to play an ever greater role. Although many governments are slow in acknowledging this reality formally, it has become a fact of life that national sovereignty (as a concept developed in the context of the formation of the nation state some two hundred years ago) is increasingly being eroded. This is clearly the case with regards to the issues of democracy and human rights which many democratic governments have long put on their foreign policy agenda.

In a recent survey entitled “Defending Democracy: A Global Survey of Foreign Policy Trends 1992-2002” ⁵ , a group of American scholars analyses how well the governments of 40 countries from around the world have lived up to their commitment to advance the cause of democracy and human freedom. From the many interesting findings in this report, I will mention only two that I find relevant in the context of this commentary: First, the authors ascertain “a strong direct correlation between the level of a country’s internal democratic development and its support for democracy abroad”. Second, they argue that the so-called established democracies do a better job than other states of promoting and defending democracy abroad, but nevertheless “in practice few regard democracy promotion as in their vital national interests”.

From a liberal point of view, it is worrisome that after 9/11, security considerations tend to trump democracy promotion concerns in the foreign policy planning of certain governments; this has become particularly apparent for the United States of America. Apart from the reshaped strategic priorities of the sole superpower domestic forces and factors in some East Asian countries hinder the promotion of a liberal agenda in the region.

First and foremost this is the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other countries, which is a “holy cow” for the member-states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The much-quoted “ASEAN-way” has effectively prevented member governments of this grouping to criticize the policies of other states in public. Efforts by more “progressive” governments – namely the former government of Thailand – to interpret the non-interference principle in a more flexible manner (“flexible engagement”) are not acceptable to a majority of ASEAN-governments. This conservatism explains why this most important Asian regional grouping has yet to come up with any democracy-promoting activity related to the area. “States that belong to multilateral organizations that do not have pro-democracy clauses, like the Association of South East Asian Nations or the Arab League, are the least likely to respond to challenges to democracy abroad.” ⁶

In the stated survey, the Republic of Korea is the only Asian country with a “good” rating regarding the promotion of democracy abroad. This favourable ranking may be attributed mainly to the personal initiatives of the former president Kim Dae-jung who hosted a series of important democracy-related conferences in his country and also played an important role in supporting independence for East Timor. In the survey that covers 40 countries and grades their performance regarding the promotion of democracy abroad in four categories (very good, good, fair, poor), Korea is in the second category (together with countries like Germany, Spain, the U.S. and the United Kingdom). India, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand are in the third group (“fair”) together with France, Nigeria and South Africa. And finally, Indonesia is ranked in group 4 (“poor”) together with Jordan, Kenya and Russia.

Aside from the ASEAN-principle of non-interference the weakness of democratic institutions and lack of financial resources may also be considered as containing factors. Last but not least, I wish to mention the cultural factor. In some East Asian countries, influential circles up to this very day contend that democracy and human rights are Western concepts not suitable for the political and social orders of this part of the world. Fortunately, the notion that Asian and liberal values are not compatible has – for all times - been dismantled in a convincing manner by Kim Dae-jung. In his article “Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia’s Anti-Democratic Values”, he argued that Asians have not only their own democratic traditions to be proud of. He also refers to a set of “indigenous” Asian democratic ideals.

It is worthwhile going back to this text published at the height of the so-called Asian Values-debate in 1994. As in other parts of the world, it is not cultural values that stand in the way of liberal democracy and market economy in East Asia but political and economic interests of local elites, who are afraid of losing their unmerited privileges if a truly liberal order sets in.

1. Presidential Inaugural Committee: The Government of the People: Reconciliation and a New Leap Forward (Kim Dae-jung), Seoul 1998.
2. Adrian Karatnycky: The 30th Anniversary Freedom House Survey. Liberty’s Advances in a Troubled World, in: Journal of Democracy, Volume 14, Number 1 (January 2003), p. 101.
3. James Gwartney and Robert Lawson (ed): Economic Freedom of the World. 2002 Annual Report (published in Germany by Liberales Institut. Friedrich Naumann Foundation), Berlin 2002, p. 11.
4. The Economist, June 28th, 2003 „Liberty’s Great Advance“. '
5. Democracy Coalition Project: Defending Democracy: A Global Survey of Foreign POlicy Trends 1992-2002, Washington D.D. 2002.
6. Ibid, p. 12.
    

*Dr. Ronald Meinardus is the former resident representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation Philippines.