This week's presidential election in Indonesia may one day be remembered as a watershed in Asian history. If the forces of reform are able to change the mode of politics in Jakarta, it will mark the time when the balance of ideology shifted in the region, when the steadily increasing stirrings of democracy throughout Asia gained the upper hand against reactionary despotism.
It was not always thus. Before the Asian financial crisis, anti-democratic Asian leaders had put forward a thesis of "Asian values." This built on an earlier premise that authoritarianism was necessary for development and extended it to claim that Asians, even after gaining a measure of prosperity, would still feel that respect for individual rights and democratic governance were unnecessary imports from the West.
It is sobering to remember how well received such claims were by pundits and academics, even those from democratic countries. Those who instinctively favored universal values were branded as "cultural imperialists." The examples of democracy that could be identified in Asia -- Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan -- were all dismissed as "special cases."
A different picture has emerged today. Even before the transformation in Indonesia, many signs had pointed to the strengthening and consolidation of Asian democracy. At the height of the financial crisis, Kim Dae-Jung was elected to the South Korean presidency, taking that country's democratic evolution to the next level; in office, he is demonstrating how combatting corruption brings economic benefits. The two most democratic members of ASEAN, Thailand and the Philippines, meanwhile have begun to challenge the orthodoxy within that organization by raising concerns about governance by its newest members, Myanmar and Cambodia. Mahathir Mohamad's rule in Malaysia is facing its first serious challenge in the wake of both the economic crisis and the trial of Anwar Ibrahim. In South Asia, India's democracy continues firm; a third general election in as many years raised concerns about voter apathy, but little else. And even in Pakistan, though it still could go awry, the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a coup looks likely to have the ironic effect of restoring the strength of the nation's constitution.
Indonesia now has the chance to reassert its leadership in the region. In the 1950s, Indonesia had taken a leading role in the global struggle against colonialism as a founder of the Non-aligned Movement. Now it can build on the efforts of Thailand and the Philippines and be the leader of a revitalized ASEAN that places good governance and democratic values at its core.
Adding the Northeast Asian grouping of democracies, and with South Asia continuing its forward progress, the "Asian values" argument clearly cannot be sustained. What used to appear to be a continent-wide critique of Western influence will now be exposed as a fig leaf for a shrinking number of autocracies and kleptocracies.
Especially striking is that the countries that continue to resist the trend form a distinct group. All that is left is China and its cronies -- North Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia. China was always the primary beneficiary of the "Asian values" argument, giving it a rhetorical base from which to defend itself against critiques of its human rights record. But it has let Southeast Asians do the work of propounding the theory.
In the future, the leadership of China will have to assert that it is a "special case," that something about its particular history makes democracy impracticable. Taiwan will gain added significance as the foil that defeats any ethnic rationalization. At the same time, this nation has a tremendous opportunity to deepen and strengthen its relationships with its neighbors on the basis of common values.
The 21st century may well be the Asian Century, but only if it is also the century of Asian democracy.
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