Democracy and Development: The East Asian Experience

▪ 1997

      by Richard Saludo

      In October 1996, 15 months after lifting the house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's (Burma's) ruling junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), cracked down on dissidents, barricading Suu Kyi's house and arresting hundreds of her supporters. The SLORC's action galvanized advocates of Myanmar democracy abroad, particularly in the U.S., and put the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the spot. ASEAN had gained some credit for Suu Kyi's release in July 1995, but the SLORC's iron fist gave ammunition to critics of the organization's policy of coaxing Myanmar toward change by quiet persuasion and cordial dialogue rather than by sanctions and confrontation.

      ASEAN's Myanmar quandary again threw into sharp focus the intertwined and entrenched issues in Asian democracy and development: Can economic pressure prod despots to liberalize? Should prosperity come before political rights? The remarkable success of the East Asian economies has occurred in countries under one-person or one-party rule, including Japan, governed almost continuously by the Liberal-Democratic Party for 41 years. Rather than immediately working to establish democracy, the region's winning formula has called for economic acceleration with one person in the driver's seat. Indeed, in the 1960s and 1970s, after a decade or so of trying to stay on the democratic path set by their former foreign colonial rulers, one Asian nation after another became autocratic.

      The East Asian Miracle, a much-quoted World Bank report on Japan and the newly industrialized economies, acknowledged the key role played by powerful governments whose technocrats forged sound economic and social policies—free enterprise, mass education, fiscal and monetary prudence, and business incentives—with a minimum of lobbying for special favours from politicians and interest groups. Rather than embracing the whole of Western democracy, East Asia absorbed mainly the capitalist elements. Thus, Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan, and Park Chung Hee in South Korea sternly presided over years of relative political and social stability and spectacular business growth. Hong Kong prospered under a laissez-faire regime run by competent, unelected bureaucrats. In its reforms China has also kept draconian political control while encouraging economic free enterprise. By contrast, India adopted democracy's political processes but rejected its market economics.

      If East Asia put economics first, politics eventually followed, largely as a result of social changes brought on by prosperity. The rise of a confident, affluent, and educated middle class, the expansion of schools and mass media, the growing assertiveness of young people and women, and the increased exposure to Western culture made more and more Asians less willing to follow their leaders without question. To these social pressures for greater freedom, economics added a further impetus. Stanford University economist Paul Krugman caused a stir in late 1994 by predicting a long-term East Asian economic slowdown unless the region improved total factor productivity (TFP), the output produced per unit of input. He maintained that innovation in the workplace was needed for improvement of TFP. Lee Kuan Yew agreed, stating that new industries require work units with freedom to plan. Quite naturally, Lee concluded, such liberties could lead to demands for similar prerogatives in the political sphere, including the right to elect leaders.

      Some of that is already happening in China. In a presentation for the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, Minxin Pei, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University, spoke of "the liberalizing effects of market forces." He notes the decreasing state control over people's economic decisions, the formation of thousands of business and professional groups, the widespread election of village councils, and even the expansion of a nongovernment press. Speaking in Shanghai in November, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher acknowledged China's efforts to invest authority in its people through legal and administrative reforms and village elections. Henry Rowen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, reported that the government media in China had only a third of the market in 1988, down from 95% in 1979. He predicted that if China's economy continued to grow at the present rate, its per capita gross domestic product would be $7,000 in 2015, the level at which democracy elsewhere has become stabilized.

      What role, if any, have economic sanctions and international pressure played in democracy's new march across Asia and, indeed, the world? Not much. Eastern Europe and Latin America broke their chains with hardly any threats from Western nations. In Asia six nations made great strides in democracy over the past decade: Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. None of them ever faced sanctions, most being U.S. allies. Rowen counseled patience in dealing with China and an end to "making economic relations hostage to political disputes." If anything, it appears that commerce with the rest of the world has been the best catalyst for both economic development and democratic change in Asia.

      Ricardo Saludo is assistant managing editor of Asiaweek.

* * *