I think there's something interesting happening in the West vs East thing that we're not in the least bit privileged to live through. What is slowly being uncovered is that Democracy paralyses decision making on a rotating decade by decade basis, whereas strong authoritarian leaders with significantly long plans can thrive if they're not buoyed down by the ideological restraints of communism and can bypass them in favour of Capitalism by the back door. It's an interesting time for liberalism which prides itself on the electorate being informed and free to say what they want - even if a) they mostly aren't and b) what they want to say is mostly noise. We'll see how this one plays out over Trump and Taiwan. :o/