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Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes.

There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.

I have no idea if some societies, anthropologically speaking, aren't really suited for democracy. I don't think that's true.

We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries.

The critical thing about Western democracy is the fact that you usually have a transition of power without bloodshed. That is an enormous advantage. But still, democracy as we know it was only invented recently in the West, historical speaking. It did not really work in ancient Rome. It functioned for less than 200 years in ancient Athens.

I don't see democracy getting better. I see democracy diminishing. More rules, more legislation. Eventually governments will see everything.

We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

When you look at - when you talk to people in Africa and across the Middle East, they're not satisfied with the way things are going. Sure, this idea of democracy was injected into the region, but it has brought mostly chaos.

Democracy may mean something more than a theoretically absolute popular government, but it assuredly cannot mean anything less.