In 1993 a colleague attended a conference in Bangkok, where he heard a speech by William Overholt, author of the groundbreaking China: The Next Economic Superpower. As the speech ended, my friend remarked to another observer that Mr Overholt had made some good points. 'Oh, didn't you know?' came the response. 'He's a China apologist.' Sadly, the main concern of critics such as this is ideology, not people and their well-being - or the truth. Yet the idea that the rapid embrace of democracy can be disastrous, and that some countries, including China, have taken the correct path by building their economies - and, with them, freedoms - is supported by two recent books. Both were written by ethnic Asians in the US. Making the most waves among academicians has been Fareed Zakaria's The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad. Harvard-educated Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, argues that developing countries which try to implement western-style democracy before they have attained basic levels of national income and civil development, often end up going off the rails. Constitutional and economic liberalism are preconditions for the success of democracy, he says. Zakaria cites many examples - including Russia and the Philippines - where premature political democratisation, in the absence of constitutional and economic liberalism, has been astonishingly unsuccessful and short-lived. Democracies in the US and elsewhere in the west are also riddled with problems, he says: 'Public respect for politics and political systems in every advanced democracy is at an all-time low'. He cites polls showing Americans most respect the Supreme Court, armed forces and Federal Reserve System, all of which operate undemocratically. Congress scores at the bottom of most surveys. What is needed in politics today 'is not more democracy - but less,' Zakaria argues. By which he means ascertaining why certain institutions in the US function so well, and why others function poorly. The aim, he says, is for democracy 'to be secured and strengthened for our times'. Advocates of democracy in the mainland and Hong Kong need to ponder and address these issues. In World On Fire, Yale Law School Professor Amy Chua argues that when developing countries are encouraged to embrace democracy and free markets too quickly, ethnic hatred and even genocide can result - as in Indonesia after Suharto's fall. These findings are no surprise in eastern Asia. South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand have grown into increasingly prosperous democracies with a strategy that starts with economic growth, automatically followed by the demands of an educated middle class, which lead to democratic development. The same order is being followed by China. S. Wayne Morrison is an editor on the Post's opinion pages
