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Asia

Already Collapsing in Asia, Democracy Could Be Wiped Out by the New World Order

Democracy in Asia is rapidly deteriorating—accelerated by waning international support and democratic backsliding even in the region’s most established systems.

<p>South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends the fourth hearing of his impeachment trial over his short-lived imposition of martial law at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, on January 23, 2025.</p>
South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends the fourth hearing of his impeachment trial over his short-lived imposition of martial law at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, on January 23, 2025. Jeon Heon-Kyun/Reuters

By experts and staff

Published

Over the past five to seven years, democracy and rights have been on a downward slide in nearly every country in Asia that is either a mature, long-lasting democracy or something close to it. This is part of a global decline in democracy—Freedom House now measures that for nineteen years; democracy has eroded around the world.

But Asia, which had been home to many democratic success stories helped by world leaders and political experts as models of reform, has been particularly hard hit. And now, with many developed states cutting their aid budgets and the United States, where the administration is trying to close most government-backed agencies that worked on democracy promotion, essentially ending any support for rights, civil society groups, and other reformers in Asia, democracy could die in many parts of the Pacific. For more on Asia’s democratic decline and how it is speeding up, see my new Japan Times article.

This publication is part of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Project on the Future of Democracy.