Agree, the above comment (2 above) was inaccurate, extremely misleading. Taiwan is absolutely a free and open democratic country as is Korea. It's pretty inconceivable that someone who is not a democratic or republic candidate would be elected president in the US or win congress. Korea has at least been successful at convicting previous leaders when they were taking bribes or doing other illegal stuff, including the leader of Samsung. The US could do a lot better there.
Before the KMT lost power I think it was reasonable to see Taiwan as a one party state, but no longer. You are a little ambiguous in the "two countries" do things, but I guess you mean Korea and Taiwan. Yeah, both countries are not paradises that have solved all issues, but they keep improving their freedom, industrial bases, and living standards for the average person. Is that true for the us - we should aspire to do that. Instead we have people arguing on school boards whether books that dare to discuss slavery or jim crow laws should be discussed at all. We aren't clearly moving to be a better society with that kind of stuff.
Eh... my statement was deliberately ambivalent. I don't know anything about Taiwan politics, but the US brand of Democracy, specifically the 2-party system with first-past-the-post elections, is driving the citizenry towards a civil war while the oligarchy enriches themselves while otherwise maintaining the status quo.
Before the KMT lost power I think it was reasonable to see Taiwan as a one party state, but no longer. You are a little ambiguous in the "two countries" do things, but I guess you mean Korea and Taiwan. Yeah, both countries are not paradises that have solved all issues, but they keep improving their freedom, industrial bases, and living standards for the average person. Is that true for the us - we should aspire to do that. Instead we have people arguing on school boards whether books that dare to discuss slavery or jim crow laws should be discussed at all. We aren't clearly moving to be a better society with that kind of stuff.