New measurements are good, especially for developing countries, because a lot of developing countries in the past few decades, have been shackled by liberal doctrines and liberal institutions that they're unable to develop their democratic potential. So they could explore new ways.I might say that new measurements will be good for liberal societies. Liberal regimes are failing because I think nobody's challenged them, they never have been measured by outcome. Imagine if you go to school and you take tests, you never get grades, a lot of them in America these days, you're not going to do well.
It's basic economic theory that monopolies, when the monopoly is forced to compete, they don't do well, they can't compete. And liberal societies have pretty much monopolized interpretation of democracy that they take the democratic credentials for granted. That's dangerous for liberal society. I think liberal democracy ought to have a chance of succeeding. I think there should be many forms of democracies and they can compete and the competition is better.
For China, I think China ought to actively participate in a new discourse on democracy. It's disappointing that China has been absent in the global dialogue and discourse on democracy. China doesn't talk about this, they don't send people out to explore ideas of democracy. So China needs to actively participate, instead of ceding the ground, and they need to acknowledge their own successes and failures, and to develop new measurements.
For Mr. Biden, when he holds this big party with 110 invitees, I want to make a suggestion for his keynote speech, not that he'll take any advice from me, but I think he should say that “let's get our act together and set some goals and be measured by those goals, five years from now, ten years from now”. Liberal democracy is failing now, is in trouble, but liberal democracy succeeded before, especially in the second half of the 20th century, liberal democracy succeeded, beautifully delivered, amazing, unprecedented improvements in their people's lives, to the point that so many countries, including China, after the Cold War sought to emulate a lot of the West's political practices, like market economics.
Mr. Biden should say, not all liberal democracies are failing. If we can't bring ourselves to say that maybe China is doing something right, we can learn, we'd lose too much face. But among the liberal democracies, there are those who are succeeding. Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, their numbers are pretty good. For a start, maybe big democracies could learn, liberal democracies can learn something from these smaller players. So if they don't act now, they are in danger that liberal societies, the word liberal, will no longer deserve to be followed by the word democracy.
