[pcwalton]

South Korea and Taiwan currently have more functional democracies than the United States does. The Economist's Democracy Index classifies Taiwan and South Korea as full democracies, while the US is a flawed democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[rich_sasha]

Taiwan, I don’t really know about now, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an overnight adoption of democracy in the 1940s. It took time, a small few generations, to get to that point.

It might be similar in Russia, though I’d imagine the heavily entrenched establishment, with massive reliance on various police forces, lends itself less to rapid democratisation-though you never know.

[pcwalton]

It was a long and hard road toward democracy for the Taiwanese and it is both (a) very impressive and commendable on their part and (b) a definitive refutation to the "Asian values" nonsense that the CPC likes to use to justify autocracy.

[kmonsen]

Both Taiwan and South Korea were brutal dictatorships until late 70s or early 80s. Now they are real democracies as much as anyone is.

My personal opinion, South Korea deserves a big asterisk. They had a president that was trapped in a cult, and the large conglomerates still decide a lot.