the framework of American Cold War strategy, you may well define it as the victory of democracy, but the reality is not like that. I indeed agree with him, however, I'd like to expand on that based on the present turning point. According to Prof. Shiraishi, what is in question now is not the problem of democracy versus authoritarianism, but the technical process newly added to it. In my understanding, if you think of Asia during the Cold War and the order under American hegemony. America would have viewed it as a period of compromise with Asia. For example, as for the American hegemony that is generally referred to, there are various plots being disclosed since the beginning of the 20th century. The plot is, in short, the liberal democracy and the market economy. A solid belief that this combination will save the world is the core of the American hegemony. The time filled with vocation to change the world based on this vision is the 20th, the American century.
There are obviously two oppositions: Leninism or socialism in the left and fascism in the right. In order to cope with their strong challenge to capitalism, the American system was created as an improved version of capitalism itself.
Narrowly speaking, it includes New Deal policy, or government - lead capitalism partly adopting social democracy. When they tried to bring it over world wide, they could develop it in Europe in quite similar shape, but in Asia where the foundation was not firm and because of the lack of necessary surrounding conditions, they made a lot of compromises in various ways. America in a sense reluctantly accepted a marriage of convenience with the developing dictatorships of different countries which emerged in the Cold War period. In other words, Asia has partly accepted the American democratization, liberalization, and the modernization based on them because they had their own reasons, but they did so in an Asian way by allowing certain cohabitation with dictatorship. The actual policy debate can be revealed when we look at the arguments on American aid in 50s. It has been argued in America that government - lead industrialization with American aid would be wrong.
These were developed especially in the Cold War period, but once the opposing socialism disappeared, the marriage of convenience was unleashed and pure capitalism or the liberal democratic portion came to the force. America itself has started to attack its counterparts without mercy. I feel there are such implications. If we extend this thought, although he says that what's in question now is not the problem of democracy versus authoritarianism, but how to deal with the technical process, the current economic crisis, for example, is breaking out far beyond the political systems.
Even in South Korea which is said to be one of the most democratically developed countries, or in Thailand where democratization prevailed to a certain degree, or in Indonesia where almost no democratization is sensed, the economic crisis is happening at the same time in similar form, so that you may make an assertion that there is no relationship between economic crisis and political systems. However, I think the degree of democratization will have a strong effect at least on countermeasures against the economic crisis or its future development. As I have an Indonesian friend next to me, I can't criticize a lot, but in Indonesia where the legitimacy of political authority is not yet established, economic crisis can easily lead to develop political crisis and further cause racial conflicts. This is what we see now in Indonesia. Imagine if the president of Korea was not Kim Dae Jung, the leader of democratization and the leading actor of the abduction, who declares openly "laborers have been my fellows for 40 years", and if it was Chung Doo hwan or Noh Tae woo, South Korea would have plunged into an internal warfare sooner than Indonesia. It is not exaggerated but rather showing the extent to which the political power is legitimately granted in the names of economical restructuring followed by a huge number of job cuts. In this regard, democracy should not be totally denied even though it was forced on us by the U.S. Democratization is still an enormous task to be achieved and it will function as the major criteria. In addition to that the technical process, in other words how the central bank functions effectively, or how to govern irrational and speculative capital trading beyond the border, will be or rather must be discussed within the context of democracy under the situation with international trend for democratization in which everybody is trying to participate in the decision-making process whether it is political or economical.
It is often controversial also in the European Union that the Competent technocrats gathered in Brussels look into the future of whole Europe so as to distribute resources in most effective ways and decide the policies. Although such situation is well understood in terms of technical efficiency, it is still politically controversial from the local citizens, standpoint because critical issues are decided by just technocrats who are not selected by general election. In Europe, they seem to try balancing one against another, however, in Asia, as for the economic crisis, it is often said