On the face of it, these are lean times for champions of Asian democracy. Two of the most attractive democratic pin-ups of yore, Thailand and the Philippines, are looking decidedly haggard. Thais no longer trust parliament to sort out their differences and have taken their grievances to the streets. In the Philippines, which goes to the polls next month, political violence scaled new heights with the massacre last November of 57 people. Their offence had been to try to register an opposition candidate. Afghanistan went through the pain of elections last year, though a lot of people wonder why it bothered. And Sri Lanka's brief flirtation with post-civil war democratic inclusion lasted roughly five minutes: Sarath Fonseka has discovered to his cost that the price of running against the incumbent president is jail.

Conversely, countries that many expected would move towards greater democracy have not obliged. Former US president Bill Clinton proselytised the idea that, in a knowledge economy, only those states that were politically open would prosper. China has proved him spectacularly wrong. Indeed, Beijing is busily creating the biggest middle class in the history of the world, yet the Communist party's hold on power looks as firm as ever.

To rub it in, economies in countries that do not bother with elections have generally performed better than those that regularly go through the rigmarole of transferring power. Even the late Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, gunned down in 1983 for his principled opposition to the Marcos dictatorship, said that freedom of speech meant little to those not free from hunger. China's growth has averaged 10 per cent a year in the past 30 years. The Philippines has not even managed 4 per cent.