Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries

Democratic movements in South Korea, Taiwan and China (PRC) in the 1980s are interesting cases for comparison. Around the 1980s, Taiwan, South Korea and China broke out huge wave of democratic movement. In late the 1980s and 1990s, although once repressed, democratic movement in Taiwan and South Korea eventually propel their country to democracy but China, after the crackdown of democratization movement, still maintains an authoritarian regime and the claimed political reform is in stagnation. So why did the democratic movements under these three authoritarian regimes have such different results? This article mainly focuses on the factors that affect the outcome of democratic movement in Eastern Asian countries, arguing that a potent of middle class, the establishment of formal democracy and intimate relationship with the US are factors that are contributive to a democratic movement to propel the democratization process of a country. Key word: democratic movement, democratization, middle class, formal democracy, foreign relationship. Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries 1 Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries Democratic movements in Taiwan, South Korea and China (PRC) in the 1980s are interesting cases for comparison. Around the 1980s, Taiwan, South Korea and China broke out huge wave of democratic movement. In late the 1980s and 1990s, although once repressed, democratic movement in Taiwan and South Korea eventually propel their country to democracy but China, after the crackdown of democratization movement, still maintains an authoritarian regime and the claimed political reform is in stagnation. So why did the democratic movements under these three authoritarian regimes have such different results? More exactly, under this same cultural base of feudal autocratic traditional, why did the democratic movements in South Korea and Taiwan succeed but in China fail to propel democratization? This article mainly focuses on the factors that affect the outcome of democratic movement in Eastern Asian countries, arguing that a potent of middle class, the establishment of formal democracy and intimate relationship with the US are factors that are contributive to a democratic movement to propel the democratization process of a country. This topic of democratization is continuously discussed in academic field and I’d like to review some of them. Perhaps the most famous work on democratization is Samuel Huntington’s (1991) The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. In Huntington’s perspective, he attributes causes of democratization to five factors: the decrease of legitimacy of authoritarian regime, economic modernization, changes in Catholic Church, regional contingency factor and external factors. Although his theory above maybe more general and Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries 2 applicable when applying to other countries’ democratization, here I want to emphasize are sub-reason of powerful middle class caused by economic modernization and external factors. For the cases I select, all these regimes’ legitimacy were somewhat decreasing in 1980s. Although the religious factor did propel the democratization in South Korea, it is not obvious in Taiwan and China. Plus, the factor of regional contingency mainly concentrates on revolutions occurred in Eastern Europe, which is little involved in eastern Asian issues. So these three factors above are not significant in cases I want to focus. Paul G. Buchanan and Kate Nicholls (2003) put their concentration on labor force’s impact on the democratization process of Taiwan and South Korea, by stating that labor movements is an aspect of resurrection of civil society asserting citizenship rights in both economic and political realm, which makes them to be a potential leading agent for the substantive democratization of civil and political society as a whole 1 . The influence exerted by labor force in democratization is apparent, and here, however, I want to attribute this impact as well as the development of civil society to modernization standard. In terms of external factors (international relations), Tao Wenzhao (2007) discussed the role of the US played during democratic movement in South Korea. He stated that the US is both a protector of South Korea’s authoritarian government and a promoter of South Korea’s democratization process 2 . As related literature and viewpoints mentioned above, three authoritarian regimes, after democratic movements, diverged to different ways. In response to the question I mentioned early, with an excerpt and combination of points I showed, I shall put forward my hypothesis: the 1 Paul G. Buchanan and Kate Nicholls, “Labor force and democratic transition in South Korea and Taiwan”, Government and opposition, Vol. 38, No. 2, (2003):203 2 Tao Wenzhao, “United States Role in Korean Democracy”, Northeast Asia Forum, Vol. 16, No. 6, (2007):67 Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries 3 success of democratic movement 3 in a particular country is determined by (1) the power of middle class, (2) its establishment of formal democracy and (3) its relationship with the US. To begin with, the strength of middle class is the crucial factor to decide the success or failure of a democratic movement. Demanding more economic and political interests in authoritarian regimes, middle class can be the cornerstone to support the democratic movement. If the middle class is not strong enough, no matter how fierce the democratic movement is, it will lead to the failure of the movement without broad support of middle class. Created by economic growth, middle class and its expansion in Taiwan and South Korea under authoritarian regime would become a power that pursues for political power and advocate for political participation, becoming the base of democratic movement. In contrast, democratic movement without the support of middle class (actually the population in middle class is rare in the late 1980s), like in China, will be unable to mobilize whole society to participate because vast majority of Chinese were peasants who do not care for their political status but for their harvest. The lack of middle class led to the failure of Chinese democratic movement. Secondly, the establishment of formal democracy is the guarantee for democracy to be implemented. Formal democracy is a state system that has in place superficial forms of democracy but is not actually managed democratically. Before achieving democratization, Taiwan and South Korea had formal democracy. On the surface, all officials are elected, but this election is strictly controlled by elites. However I think, even though the exercise of formal democracy is superficial, this superficial system can provide a legal basis and a justifiable reason for people to pursue and conduct further democratic movements and let the rulers have no reason 3 Here I define the success of the democratic movement as that the movement ultimately results in the beginning or completion of democratization. Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries 4 to deny them. If the rulers are against the democratic movement, they may lose the moral support and their own legitimacy. Both Taiwan and South Korea established formal democratic system first and then democratic movements promoted countries to democratization gradually. However in China, the organization of political institutions did not comply with the discipline of check and balance but under the rule of “proletariat dictatorship” or one-party autocracy. The lack of legislation of formal democracy gave Chinese authoritarian government the chance to deny democracy and weakened the justifiability of democratic movement in China. The relations with the US of related countries also affect their outcomes of democratic movement. Taiwan and South Korea are deeply influenced by the United States in their democratization process as they keep close relationship with the US. The US pressure imposed on them accelerated the democratization. On contrast, China followed the Soviet Union’s authoritarian system and kept away from the US. Even though in the 1980s, China improved its relationship with the US, independence is the main foreign policy of China. Unlike Taiwan and South Korea, the influence from the US on China’s domestic affairs is rare. In order to test my hypothesis,I will use small-N qualitative method to examine the cases of South Korea, Taiwan and China (PRC). The specific method will be comparative history and macro-casual analysis. At first I will review three countries' history context during years of democratization respectively. Then independent variables will be discussed. To analyze the strength of middle class, some descriptive data such as proportion of middle class in whole population will be shown. To see whether there was formal democracy, I will examine the legislation record and political system of related countries. With regard to relationships with the US, I will draw upon government’s diplomatic situation in historical context. Then all these Democratic Movement and Democratization in Eastern Asian Countries 5 independent variables will analyzed to find whether it can propel the dependent variable—the success of democratic movement—or not, therefore testing my hypothesis. Over all, the article will be divided into six parts. The first part is here the introduction. Part 2 will be comparative history of three cases respectively which will introduce democratic movement history of Korea, Taiwan and China during around 1980s in turn. In part 3, factors of the strength of middle class, the establishment of formal democracy and the relationships with the US of the countries will be discussed in each case’s literature by macro-casual analysis to figure out the relationship between these independent variables and dependent