mandag 18. januar 2016

Professor Stein Ringen: Elections in Taiwan - China in Relief


Taiwan has elected a woman president in direct, democratic elections. Unthinkable in China, both direct elections and a woman at the helm. Both Taiwan and South Korea now have women presidents. That’s symptomatic. These are genuinely modern countries and cultures. They have modernized not only as economic tigers, but also followed through politically and socially. That puts China’s modernization in perspective. China has modernized, to some degree, economically, but politically it stubbornly holds on to dictatorship and socially it remains immature. On the standing of women in society, for example, when young women demonstrate for protection against sexual harassment in public transport, they get rounded up and detained. Read more