Developments in China would need to be treated as a special case in this context. There are lessons to be learned for other Asian countries from both the past successes of the high-performing economies and from the financial crises these countries have recently faced. Besides this, studies of the global repercussions of economic growth, stagnation, and recovery in parts of Asia are likely to reveal basic features of international economic and financial processes which also impact upon the European economies. During what has been called 'the third wave of democratization', plural liberal polities have been established in many parts of Southern and Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America. But liberal ideas have secured only a few successes in Asia.
Constitutional democracy prevails in Japan and India.
Demands for more political openness have been suppressed, most notably in China, Indonesia, Burma, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. From a Western perspective, Asia is the least democratic of the world's five continents. In Asia there has been an intense discussion, reinforced by the financial crisis, on the applicability of Western models of democracy. In many quarters, there has been a rejection of these in favour of Asian versions of governance and human rights, built on the community rather than the individual, on consensus rather than opposition, on strong government rather than pluralism and decentralization. These ideas and visions have been promoted through various avenues, among them the joint Asian declaration at the Vienna Conference, the Bangkok Declaration, and the Committee for a New Asia.