Hong Kong should avoid the 'democracy' trap

Hundreds of thousands of youths in Egypt believed in this message and swarmed into Tahrir Square, where - after he was given a shove by US President Barack Obama - Hosni Mubarak moved from the presidential palace to prison. What followed was not prosperity but chaos because of the attempt to forcefully impose a Western political system on a society that is not even remotely Western.

Or, take the example of India. People of the world's most populous democracy are also among the world's poorest and the quality of public goods and services has been abysmal as corruption has become more deeply entrenched. This is because the Westminster model of governance best fits a small and essentially homogenous island country rather than a subcontinent crisis-laden with ethnic and societal differences.

Even in the UK, problems have started cropping up - such as persisting poverty in certain pockets and youths joining the Islamic State - because of the transformation of society from a broad homogeneous entity to a multicultural country.

Democracy is not an objective in itself but merely the means toward a better life. Therefore, each country needs to ensure that the political model it adopts is one that will ensure economic progress and societal mobility. In the case of China, and that includes Hong Kong, what is incontestable is that the political system has generated economic growth on a scale never seen before. Such progress poses a challenge to the West, because Chinese companies are becoming increasingly powerful to take on their Western counterparts even in advanced fields such as aircraft manufacturing, just as India (despite a dysfunctional governance system) is moving ahead in services.

Political chaos can act as a speed breaker for rising Asian economies, dampening the challenge they pose to Western countries. Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Ukraine are examples of countries where hundreds of thousands of youths believed that the replacement of existing structures through street protests would result in a better life. Instead, what they have got are deteriorating living standards and increasing insecurity.

This should deter Hong Kong residents from joining the sorry list of losers who heeded the siren of "democracy", not so succinctly given by the West. They need to understand that democracy is a system which, in order to be successful, has to be honed and developed exclusively to suit a society's needs and judged on the basis of the quality of life delivered, which in Hong Kong is still moving upward when the present generation in the US and the EU are worse off than the generations preceding it.

The author is vice-chair of Manipal Advanced Research Group and UNESCO peace chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal University, India.