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Taipei, Seoul lack 'quality democracy,' Chien warns

Although Taiwan and South Korea have managed to implement democratic systems, neither country has as yet achieved "quality democracy," a former Taiwanese foreign minister said at a forum in Taipei yesterday.

"Quality democracy tends to be kinder and gentle, and accountability, responsibility and transparency should be integral parts of the political system ... But in both cases we witness political confrontations all the time," Fredrick Chien (錢復) said in an address to the 16th Taipei-Seoul Forum yesterday.

Chien was speaking in his capacity as chairman of the Cathay Charity Foundation.

The two-day forum was co-sponsored by National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations and the Seoul Forum for International Affairs.

Political freedom

Chien, who has served as foreign minister under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration and later as head of the Control Yuan under the Democratic Progressive Party administration, said that when an electoral democracy is transformed into a liberal democracy, a nation's citizens will be politically free and equal to each other before the law, while elected officials will not only be law-abiding, but also accountable and responsible to the electorate.

"There are considerable hurdles we need to overcome before reaching that desirable goal," Chien said.

US assistance

He said that the democratization process in both countries was driven by the affluence brought about by economic development, as well as generous assistance from the US.

"Increased affluence brings people more opportunities for contact with the outside world, through travel, business, study or even subscriptions to foreign publications," he said.

"People begin to realize that a democratic system is far better than authoritarianism, and calls for changes inevitably follow," Chien said.

The difference between the two countries' democratization processes was that the South Korean student movement had played a much more significant role than had been the case in Taiwan, he said.
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