Democracy Is Reviving In Asia

This information is published by The Economist. Here is an extract:

The chagrin of the dozen-odd years of this column’s existence is that fair, free and open societies in Asia have for most of that time been on the retreat. The golden advances in Asian democracy were in the 1980s and 1990s, when dictatorships in the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan fell spectacularly. In recent years freedom has been on the back foot.

Think of the assaults on the judiciary and the press by Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines until last year. Or attempts in Cambodia by its strongman, Hun Sen, to destroy the opposition. Or Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, stoking sectarian tensions and intimidating his critics in the media. Or Indonesia’s move to criminalise insulting the president. The main exception to this recent trend, tragically, has ended up conforming to it. In 2015 joyful elections in Myanmar brought half a century of military rule to an end. But in 2021, the generals took back power in a violent coup and threw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government in jail. They have ruled the country through terror ever since.

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