Address
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
To the Royal Institute of International Affairs on the Official Visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

[Delivered at the Chatham House, London, England, March 14, 1995]

East Asia’s dilemma

I FELT that if my visit with you is to be meaningful, I should speak on a topic—that I am sure is much in your thoughts—of which I have some current practical experience.

I refer to the debate about authoritarianism and democracy in East Asia.

That democracy and economic growth are incompatible in the poor countries has become widely accepted—particularly among those fortunate peoples who do not need to test the truth of this hypothesis in their own societies.

East Asia arrives on the world stage

And it is true that many of the East Asian countries—first Japan, then the four “little dragons” of Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong and then also Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and China—have made varying degrees of authoritarianism pay off in terms of national capacity, higher living standards and international influence.

East Asia’s explosive growth has now made it a center of world power—in economic and, potentially, in military terms. Thus it has attracted both interest and concern—particularly among thoughtful westerners like you who are here today.

What does East Asia’s arrival at center-stage mean for the world? Will East Asia develop in a way different from that of the West? Is there an Asian mode of democracy?

And (as East Asians assert with increasing self-confidence) does the West really have anything to learn from the East?

Let me try some short answers to these questions before I elaborate on them.

My view is that East Asia’s growth is unique not because it was largely organized, at the beginning, by authoritarian governments but because it gave ordinary people a stake in development.

To me, it is not the high growth rates the East Asian economies have attained which are impressive. What, to me, is outstanding about East Asian growth is the way it has motivated the masses of East Asians—by reducing mass poverty and generating pressures for political liberalization.

To the question: “Is there an Asian mode of democracy?” I would reply that all increasingly complex societies—of either East or West—are best ruled by conciliation and consensus—if society is to become both free and orderly under a rule of law.

Let me now elaborate on these thoughts, so you can judge their soundness.

Authoritarianism on East Asia

It has been fashionable, in recent times, to distinguish between democratic and authoritarian governments in terms of how well they provide political rights and economic development for their peoples.

Democratic countries, it is said, may guarantee their peoples political liberty and civil rights—but these rights lead only to undisciplined and disorderly behavior harmful to economic development.

By contrast, those countries that value social discipline more than democracy have produced East Asia’s tiger economies—and new growth models for the whole developing world.

This argument oversimplifies complex reality. Historically, the authoritarian regimes that have succeeded in modernizing their societies have been the exception—and not the rule—among the many countries.

In many parts of Latin America, Africa and even in Asia—including the Philippines under the strongman Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s—authoritarianism merely aggravated the weaknesses of the State—and worsened economic stagnation.

In much of East Asia, authoritarian rule has worked differently—for several reasons. There, in the aftermath of the Pacific War, nationalist elites came to power facing various crises of survival.

How East Asian authoritarianism is different

But while the growth rates achieved by the East Asian tiger-economies are impressive, they are not unique. For instance, Brazil did just as well—if not better—and for as sustained a period.

Between 1932 and 1979—for fully 47 years—Brazil’s GNP grew, on average by 6.3 percent a year. After a generals’ coup in 1964, it ranged as high as 11-12 percent for ten successive years.

Yet, in 1986, two-thirds of the 135 million Brazilians still ate less than the minimum daily calories set by the country’s own nutritionists; and one-third of all Brazilian workers still earned less than the country’s minimum wage of 60 US dollars a month.

No—it is not high growth in itself that has been unique about East Asian development.

What is unique about East Asian growth is the way it gave ordinary people a stake in development.

How was this arranged? In almost every country the period of intense growth was preceded by some social leveling—typically by the breaking-up of traditional oligarchies through land reform, and radical improvements in the delivery of social services like health care and basic education.

Good health, an adequate education and significant investments in human resources prepared ordinary East Asians to grasp the opportunities that economic growth offered to lift themselves up.

Brazil’s protectionist approach to development confined the benefits of growth to an oligarchic elite. By contrast, East Asia’s growth spread sufficiently for the middle class to diversify into new and profitable interests. And as these new interests—among entrepreneurs, manufacturers, exporters, industrial workers, small farmers, professionals and students—asserted themselves, they created their own political space and economic opportunities.

As a result, high GNP growth in East Asia not only reduced mass poverty but also generated popular pressures for democracy.

Let me now sketch the political situation in my country.

Democracy in the Philippines

Our trials in the Philippines—which, as you know, included a spell of strongman rule from late 1972 until early 1986—have persuaded us to modernize the “hard way”—accepting restraints and handicaps other East Asian governments did not care to confront.

In a way, we Filipinos have no choice but to try and modernize within a democratic, constitutional framework. History has shaped our political culture in such a way that ensures authoritarianism will not so easily work for us.

This background tells us why modern Philippine governments have no choice but to develop by conciliation and consensus. We accept that democracy may not provide the fast shortcut to growth. But it does ensure that the economic, political and social institutions we build are strong and enduring.

Not yet Westminster—but we are getting there

Our kind of democracy may still be miles and years away from Westminster’s. But our political system already passes what Karl Popper calls the “bottom-line” test for democracy. Through the popular vote, we can change our ruler by peaceful means without recourse to violence and bloodshed.

In the past, we in the Philippines were left behind East Asia’s growth because we mistakenly tried to protect our industries from foreign competition.

We mistakenly equated political nationalism with economic self-sufficiency.

Now we recognize we must join the competitive, free-trade regime of the global economy. We realize we must take part in the vigorous life of the Asia-Pacific community.

We started by removing the barriers—erected over these last 40 years—against foreign investment. And we are leveling the playing field of enterprise, by dismantling cartels and monopolies—in telecommunications, air transport, interisland shipping, insurance, cement-that had dominated the closed economy.

Recently we opened up the banking sector-which had been closed since 1948 to foreign investment As a consequence, the German Deutsche Bank and the Dutch Ing Bank have both come in from Europe The Chartered Bank and the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank (assorted with the U.K.) have been with us since before World War ll.

Our reforms are taking hold because they are the fruit of a new spirit of cooperation between the presidency and the legislature. My Administration partly recently entered into a European-style coalition with the main opposition grouping.

Social reform we have made the centerpiece of Government’s agenda—so that we can pull out the root causes of our dissidence and political instability.

We are also increasing our capacity to defend ourselves—by modernizing our armed forces, and by internalizing value formation and professionalism within the officer corps.

Our most urgent task is to raise the political capacity of the Philippine State—to increase the legitimacy and effectiveness of State institutions; set them free from the dominance of interest groups and enable them to act in pursuit of the common good.

Historically, the Philippine State has been weaker than the oligarchies that have preyed on it—oligarchies that have used their privileged access to the bureaucracy to accumulate great fortunes and tremendous political power.

People empowerment

In a word, we see our salvation not in curtailing our democracy but in broadening it. And this is what we are trying to do through our program of “people empowerment.”

People empowerment to us means devolving political authority from the center to local governments—removing the tangle of laws, taxes and regulations administered at the national level, which restrains regions and localities from developing on their own. It means awarding control over local resources to local communities and nurturing local people’s organizations.

It also means empowering ordinary people—enabling them to have a say in how they are to be governed—and instilling into our elite a higher sense of their social responsibility.

We aspire to a kind of people-based capitalism that not only emphasizes efficiency and individual creativeness but also cares for those whom development leaves behind.

We seek a way of placing individual initiative—the necessary driving force of progress—within a shaping moral order; within a community based on compassion, civic responsibility and social harmony.

We also believe equality cannot wait until after the economic pie has grown much bigger—because gross inequality by itself enables the powerful few to override the interests of the powerless majority in the making of public policy.

Only with a decent minimum of food, clothing, shelter, health care and schooling can the Filipino poor lift themselves up to grasp the “equality of opportunity” and “equality of treatment under the law” that the Philippine State guarantees in theory.

A summing up of East and West

Let me now sum up my thesis here today.

In many ways, we might say the Philippines is closer to Europe—politically and culturally—than the other East Asian countries.

Spanish rule—beginning in 1571—has made us East Asia’s only Christian nation. Our revolutionary movement of 1896 was inspired by Europe’s enlightened regime—whose libertarian ideals our student-exiles brought home from Europe in the late nineteenth century. Our national hero, Jose Rizal, researched our early history and wrote revolutionary literature at the British Museum.

And from the Americans—who ruled us from 1902 until 1946, we received our grounding in mass-education and in electoral politics.

This diversified background has enabled us to adapt more easily to the modernizing influences from the West. But, like every other East Asian society, we still aspire to change and develop in harmony with our historical background and our cultural values.

Like every other East Asian society, we believe tradition and modernity do not necessarily contradict each other. There are continuities—no less than ruptures—in every society undergoing social change.

Will East Asian democracy, then, be different from that of the West’s?

In substance, it should not: all complex societies are best ruled consensually. Then, also, the technologies that define a historical period affect social organizations—whether Eastern or Western—in the same way.

Look, for instance, at how the new communications technology—of fax machines, direct-dial telephones, Internets and portable satellite discs—have circumscribed the power of governments to control their peoples’ access to the outside world.

Having the advantage of hindsight, we in East Asia are rightly concerned—for instance—with how to preserve our strong family ties—seeing the collapse of Western family structures as the symptom and cause of much of what has gone wrong with Western societies.

A new spirit in the world

It is said that there are many roads to democracy. In the West as well as in the East, countries are democratic to the extent that their governments rule by conciliation and consensus.

To me, what really matters most in the relationships between Europe and Asia is that we keep down the mistrust, the misplaced fears, the all-too-human tendency to preach and to judge, which has characterized the encounters between peoples of different cultures.

Fortunately there is a new spirit rising in the world, which recognizes a new community of purpose among nations—in keeping the peace so that unhampered trade can bring about mutual prosperity. And, in disputes between nations, this new spirit gives those in the right a kind of moral strength superior to the old armed might of the Cold War period. Indeed, right makes might!

Many elements, all mutually reinforcing, thus bind us and our peoples together—our culture, our histories, the values we hold in common, and the new opportunities that our two countries and our two regions now offer to us.

It is for us to build on these foundations a new relationship that will, in concrete terms, benefit us all.