From The Wall Street Journal, via A Glimpse of the World:
Besides Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and most recently Indonesia and East Timor have become genuine democracies. Throughout the region, democratic transformation has been underpinned by strong economic growth, ironically driven today by Chinese capitalism. One would have been foolhardy to predict such a future for Asia back in 1967.
This democratic revolution was helped along by a critical shift in American policy that occurred during the Reagan years, when the U.S. moved away from a “realist” policy of support for friendly dictators towards encouragement of democratic transition.
