Musings on democracy in Asia

 What do the democracy reforms mean for the people of  Hong Kong?’ a London banker friend asked me in 1992 as  Britain was preparing to hand back its colony to China. Only  three years earlier, China had become a global pariah by its  forceful ending of the Tiananmen Square protests. Yet, in five  years’ time, Britain was to hand over control of its biggest  remaining colony to the Chinese communist dictatorship. 

The optics among British voters were appalling. How could the  government allow such a ruthless regime to run Hong Kong? So,  Chris Patten, a top-flight Conservative politician, was sent in as  Hong Kong’s last governor. Patten’s job was to re-write the  narrative so Britain could stage an honourable withdrawal. 

The 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown reshaped global perceptions of China’s political trajectory. Photo:Jeff Widener/Associated Press

News headlines sang with stories about his political reforms. But  very little was possible because, as Patten himself said, the ink  was already dry on the agreements with China. His achievement  was to inject hope, a glimpse of what Hong Kong people could  enjoy if they fought for democracy. As I told the banker that day,  ‘Imagine being asked to visit a beautiful sun-strewn beach where  everything is wonderful. To get there, however, you need to run  through a field of machine gun fire.’ 

At the time, Western elites were basking in the collapse of the  Soviet Union with the belief that we had reached the ‘end of  history’ when all societies, including China, would naturally  evolve into liberal democracies. My analysis of Hong Kong went  against mainstream thinking. 

But, as a BBC foreign correspondent for more than a quarter of a  century, I still conclude that democracy can be dangerous and  bloody when implemented badly, too quickly, or against  overwhelming resistance. 

My first assignment in 1986 was in Sri Lanka to cover the civil war,  where the political system, bequeathed by the British, was one of  birthright democracy. Most people did not vote on issues, but  along ethnic and religious lines. A minority of Sri Lankans are  Hindu Tamils, while the majority are Buddhist Sinhalese, who  would always hold power. An easy way to win Sinhalese votes was  to brand the Tamil community as a threat. The result was a  26-year civil war. 

In 1987, I was posted to the Philippines after the dictator,  Ferdinand Marcos, was overthrown in street protests. I found  myself reporting on regular and violent attempts by the military  to take over the civilian government, bodies in the street,  buildings burnt, attacks on the presidential palace and so on.  Naïve politicians, vested interests, and weak institutions created a  cocktail of failure in a society that had little understanding of the  compromise needed to make a democracy work.

The fall of Marcos did not bring stability, but a turbulent cycle of coups and democratic fragility. 

Meanwhile, Western advisers flooded in, talking up those  ‘sun-strewn beaches’ of democracy I used as a metaphor in Hong  Kong. They seemed oblivious to their own history in that Western  democracy emerged over centuries of massive bloodshed,  including two world wars. At the same time, European and North  American societies are anchored in shared cultural values and  administrative systems. Asia, by contrast, is a mix of religions,  ethnicities and governments. The glue that binds the region is not  democracy, values and elections, but trade and wealth creation.  Therefore, this democracy conundrum poses three questions. 

The first, as in Hong Kong, is what to do if one society is up  against another that is more powerful and operates with different  values. Other examples include Pakistan with India, the  Palestinians with Israel and Taiwan with China. 

The second is how a society can move from dictatorship to  democracy without violence. Examples of recent Western failure  can be seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Myanmar. One recurring  issue is birthright voting, which I encountered in Sri Lanka. 

Rapidly imposed democratic systems in Afghanistan and Iraq revealed the limits of externally engineered political change. Photo: Reuters 

The third is what to do when an embryonic democracy delivers a  result opposed by the West. Examples are Iran (1953), Vietnam  (1956), Chile (1973), and Egypt (2012) when ‘Arab Spring’ elections  delivered an Islamic Muslim Brotherhood leader who was ousted  the next year in favour of a pro-Western military government. 

In the eyes of Asia and the wider Global South, the issue of how  to deal with an unbeatable foreign force applies to all powers, not  just authoritarian ones and specifically to America. One society,  Taiwan, stands as a model for how to face down a hostile, stronger  neighbour and tread the precarious path to democracy.  Interestingly, Taiwan was heavily mentored by the US, and its  shift from dictatorship can be broken down into five elements.

The first is economic development, creating an awareness of  private ownership and personal responsibility. Second is taxation,  which introduces a pact between government and citizens. Third  is slowly allowing civil society, political parties, commerce, travel  and press freedom, all of which boost government accountability.  Fourth is growing the economy, building infrastructure, creating  impartial institutions and introducing laws suited to a developed  democracy. 

Analysis: Humphrey Hawksley | Design: Democracy Asia 

Only after all that was in place did Taiwan hold its first  presidential election in 1996. Voters went to the poll and  overnight it became a democracy. We should note that the whole  process took half a century. 

A fifth element, critical to success, was building up trade with its  enemy and, for that to work, both sides need to prioritise the  economy over ideology. Taipei has not sent insurgent bombers  across the Taiwan Strait as a gesture of independence, nor has  Beijing occupied an outlying Taiwanese island as a claim of  sovereignty. Instead, China-Taiwan business has created such  wealth that everyone would have too much to lose if political  hostilities turned to violence. In too many places, such a  pragmatic trade-based approach has not been the case. 

Despite political tension, economic interdependence between China and Taiwan has helped prevent open conflict. Credit: Ed Lustan/Inquirer.net 

Thankfully, Hong Kong’s uprisings were nearly bloodless and it  retains its ability for commerce and money-making. But  pro-Western activists remain in jail, and that ‘sun-strewn beach’  proved unreachable. Treaties were signed. Hope was dangled.  Promises were made. But when it mattered, raw power decided  Hong Kong’s future. 

In our newly emerging world order, there is a lesson here for all to  see.