Variety of cyber democracies based on the Asian view of humanity

The US digital enclosure model

In exchange for providing services, the IT platformers in the United States (U.S.) learn about users’ privacy and all data about them: what they read, what they buy, who they talk to, what they eat, where they live, and how they use that data to make money. In Scott Galloway’s “Red Knight/Blue Knight” argument, the basic business model of the Red Knights (Amazon, Facebook, and Google) is to distribute products below cost and sell users’ behavioral data to other companies for a fee. Android smartphones send 1,200 data points to Google daily. Users receive these services in exchange for privacy. YouTube videos are free, but Google collects viewing data. By contrast, the basic business model of blue knights such as Apple is to sell goods at a price higher than their production cost. An Apple iPhone costs $400 but sells for $1200. The iPhone sends 200 data points per day to Apple (Apple insists that it does not use these data to make money). Users pay a great deal of money to ensure their privacy and status. Netflix charges fees for video streaming. Apple also receives $12 billion a year to make Google the default search engine on iOS (Galloway, 2020, pp. 30–34).

The EU GDPR model

The EU is a standard and regulatory power; with 500 million people, it is the world’s largest economy, and the size of its market influences global standards and regulations in areas such as corporate mergers, accounting standards, environmental protection, and bioethics (Endo, 2012, pp. 4–5). Suzuki refers to the ability to ensure and make effective the inducement or regulation (“regulation”) of certain economic, social, and political actors to act in accordance with rules and requirements (“standards”) that they mutually recognize, share, and act accordingly toward other actors (Suzuki, 2012, pp. 20–21). The ability to set an agenda, persuasiveness (impartiality and universality), ability to act collectively, and market gravity are key factors. As a regulatory empire, first, it forces countries outside its imperial domain to accept the various regulations of market activity that it implements; second, it does not directly use military force or other material power (violence); and third, the party subject to regulation accepts it voluntarily, creating a voluntary subordinate state (Suzuki, 2012, pp. 28–29).

U.S. –European clash over data privacy

The U.S.–European clash over data privacy is discussed as we examine the Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunications (SWIFT) case, Safe Harbor invalidation decision, Google Spain decision, and Schmules II decision. First, SWIFT has over 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and is the standard for money transfers worldwide; however, because it is based in Belgium, it must comply with the principles of the EU Data Protection Directive. In June 2006, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (under the Patriot Act and a Presidential Executive Order) monitored bank transfer data to prevent transfers to terrorists. The European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the U.S. Treasury for violating the basic principles of the EU Data Protection Directive (Miyashita, 2017, pp. 136–138).

Second, the Safe Harbor invalidation decision was taken. Specifically, in July 2000, the European Commission decided that companies complying with the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles and other Safe Harbor Principles established by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the transfer of personal data from the European Economic Area to the U.S. provided “an adequate level of protection” in October 2015. In October 2015, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the Safe Harbor decision was invalid. The ruling prohibited many U.S. companies from transferring customer and employee data from the EU to the U.S. (Miyashita, 2021, p. 121).

Third, the Google Spain decision focused on the “right to be forgotten”: in May 2014, a local newspaper published an article about a man living in Spain whose house was auctioned off because he continued to default on his social security payments. More than a decade later, when this digitized article was listed as a Google search result, the man asked Google to remove the information. The Spanish Data Protection Agency ordered Google to remove search results. Google disagreed and appealed to the Court of Justice of the European Union, which upheld the man’s claim. In the Google Spain decision, an individual’s right to privacy and data protection prevails over the search engine operator’s economic interests and citizens’ right to access their information. The EU Court’s decision is not just an EU issue; the removal of domains is also effective worldwide, including in Japan and the U.S. The U.S. objected as follows: The EU ruling “taints the Web” (Rulimg in E.U. May Roil the Web, Washington Post, May 14, 2014). Under the American tradition of freedom of expression, the publication of “truthful information” is guaranteed. Even rape victims in the US are not allowed to remove true information (Miyashita, 2017, pp. 112–113, 118–119).

Fourth, the Schmules II decision involved US–EU political negotiations over new EU political negotiations over a new framework that would allow U.S. companies operating in the EU to transfer personal data from the EU. In July 2016, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission agreed to a new framework called the Privacy Shield, a 1998 EU data protection directive that provides for the appointment of an ombudsperson with an independent supervisory authority within the EU. The 1998 EU Data Protection Directive, which provides for the appointment of an ombudsperson with independent supervisory authority within the U.S. Department of State to prevent indiscriminate and bulk access to personal data by the U.S. government and other agencies, even for security purposes and various remedies, became an issue with Microsoft’s collection and transfer of Spanish employees’ data to the U.S. (Miyashita, 2021, pp. 126–129).

The U.S.–European clash over data was a clash of ideas and philosophies of privacy culture and privacy rights behind the law. U.S. privacy law was based on liberty, and the guarantees of liberty were (1) notice to the individual, (2) opportunity to choose, (3) guarantee of access to data by the individual, (4) security, and (5) remedies, while European privacy law was based on “dignity,” and in April 2016, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was enacted. We next seek to understand the U.S.–EU data friction as a “regulatory tussle.” Drezner stated that in today’s world, the only regulatory superpowers capable of creating global rules are the U.S. and EU (Drezner, 2007, pp. 35-37). The prerequisite for a regulatory superpower is a domestic (intra-regional) market that combines enormous size and non-fragility; Japan, India, and China do not fit this bill (Suda, 2021, pp. 5–6). In terms of digital taxation (Kaneko, 2021, pp. 181–183), corporate income taxes for internationally active companies, such as ‘GAFA,’ are structured so that only profits attributable to physical locations, such as factories and branches (permanent establishment PE), can be taxed in the source country. The US IT sector’s effective tax rate is 9.5% (the average for multinationals is 23.2%), and the digital services tax is still under discussion. The European Commission frequently fines Google for violating the competition laws.

Cybersecurity and privacy

What is an “open and secure cyberspace”? Cybersecurity is “making cyberspace safe from threats” (Suda, 2021, p. 145). The economic motivation for the U.S. to pursue open and secure cyberspace may be that IT platform companies, such as GAFA, are headquartered in the U.S. For digital companies to operate globally, they need an open and secure cyberspace environment in which data can be exchanged across borders (Suda, 2021, pp. 152–153). The EU’s Cybersecurity Strategy in 2013 was about “open, safe and secure cyberspace.” While the EU is proactive about the free flow of data in general, it takes a cautious stance on cross-border transfer and the use of personal data, and is considering measures to prevent the transfer of personal data to the U.S. (Suda, 2021, pp. 153–154).

Differences in approaches to democratization between the U.S. and Europe

This section examines the differences in values regarding democracy and human rights between the U.S. and Europe from the perspective of differences in the U.S. and European approaches to democracy promotion in the Middle East. The cold attitude of European countries toward the U.S. concept of democratization in the Middle East can be attributed to diplomatic factors, such as the rift between France, Germany, and the U.S., that has persisted since the beginning of the war in Iraq, and the dissatisfaction that the U.S. has not given the highest priority to peace in Palestine in Middle East affairs. However, it can also be argued that at the heart of this conflict lies the difference in approaches between the U.S. and Europe to promoting democracy. To explore this difference and the European approach to democracy promotion, we will go back in time and examine the EU’s efforts to support democracy in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War, namely the Barcelona Process.

The Barcelona process

Kopstein organized the difference between U.S. and European views of democracy and approaches to democracy promotion as the U.S. taking a “bottom-up” approach while Europe takes a “top-down” approach (Kopstein, 2006, p. 93). He explained that this difference lies behind the conflict between the U.S. and Europe in promoting democracy in the Middle East and that this difference between the U.S. and Europe is clearly expressed in their different interpretations of the 1989 regime collapse in Eastern Europe as follows: The U.S. interpreted the 1989 revolution as a Bottom-Up movement, a decision by civil society to overthrow dictators and transform regimes into market economies. When the Berlin Wall fell, democracy inevitably emerged from the regime’s dust. According to this interpretation, the regime changes in the 1990s was merely an epilogue of the 1989 main event. Europe, on the other hand, saw the events of 1989 as essentially a top–down phenomenon, with the Kremlin, not the streets of Warsaw or Budapest, as the real stage for the events of 1989. The determination of Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, to end the Cold War made regime changes possible. From a European perspective, 1989 was merely a prologue to history, and efforts to promote democracy began in earnest in the 1990s when the European Union supported regime change in Eastern Europe. European democracy support was not directed at civil society per se, but at governments, using EU accession negotiations as an incentive to build democratic institutions (Kopstein, 2006, pp. 86–91).

The EU’s Top-Down approach

The EU’s approach to supporting democratization in the Middle East is similar to its support for democratization in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe through the EU’s eastward enlargement. This approach is similar to the EU’s support for democratization in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe through its eastward enlargement. The EU imposed the Copenhagen Criteria, acceptance of the Acquis Communautaire, and fulfillment of 31 accession criteria on the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe as conditions for their accession to the EU. The Copenhagen criteria were imposed. These criteria were the three accession conditions set by the European Council in June 1993: (1) political criteria (democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights), (2) economic criteria (market economy), and (3) the ability to take on the obligations of membership. The 31 accession criteria covered everything from the free movement of persons, services, and agriculture to public finance, the judiciary, employment, and foreign affairs, and represented a far-reaching restructuring of the states and societies of Eastern European countries. To reap the economic benefits of EU membership, Eastern European governments compete with each other to reform their societies and meet these criteria. Thus, the EU’s stabilization of the periphery through the introduction of democracy and the market economy took the path of inducing peripheral governments to achieve the standards of democracy and the market economy while inducing them to join and gain access to the EU. Democracy promotion focuses on helping the governments of target countries introduce democracy (Haba, 2004, pp. 48–49).

Since the end of the Cold War, the EU has positioned the southern Mediterranean region, including the Middle East, as a strategic point for immigration, energy supply, and trade and has sought to strengthen relations with the region, including the expansion of aid and trade. The EU has identified the southern Mediterranean region, including the Middle East, as a strategic point for immigration, energy supply, and trade. The Mediterranean region here refers to the 12 countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Malta, and Cyprus, and differs from the “Middle East and North Africa” classification used by the United Nations, the World Bank, and other U.S.-led organizations. In November 1995, 15 EU member states and 12 MED countries/regions signed the Barcelona Declaration. The Barcelona Declaration pledged political, economic, and social cooperation through the creation of a free trade area by 2010. The Barcelona Process, in which the EU countries and the 12 MED countries participated, initiated discussions on trade, development, and political reforms, known as the “Barcelona Process” (Uchida, 2005, p. 245). Association Agreements were negotiated individually with each MED country to promote political, economic, and social cooperation. The content of the individual Association Agreements included political conditionality, such as respect for fundamental human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Suzui characterized the strategic goal as “the deepening of integration between the EU-MED and within the MED on the economic basis of the creation of a free trade area through the progress of the Barcelona Process and the transfer of the EU legal system through this process” (Suzui, 2005, p. 229).

The U.S.’s Bottom-Up approach

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the G.W. Bush administration promoted the “expansion of democracy” in the Middle East as the most important foreign policy issue, in parallel with the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, as the main countermeasure in the “war on terror.” It can be said that the U.S. has pursued the expansion of democracy as a foreign policy principle since its independence and founding, but its recent democracy promotion diplomacy is unique in that it aims to transform the social structure of the target countries. In the words of then president George W. Bush, the U.S. concept of democratization in the Middle East is a “generational” challenge, which means that regardless of short-term changes in policy focus, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of democracy promotion diplomacy as a new policy system. There are three main interpretations of the Bush administration’s democracy promotion diplomacy, depending on whether one understands it as a philosophy or policy instrument. The first interpretation considers democracy promotion as a principle and goal of U.S. foreign policy. This would include such perhaps axiomatic statements as “democracies almost never fight each other” and terrorism does not occur in democracies. In his theory of “democratic peace,” Russet noted that conflicts between democracies tend to be resolved peacefully through negotiation and mediation (Russett, 1993, pp. 3–5). Ikenberry stated that “the United States is better able to pursue its interests, reduce security threats in its environment, and foster a stable political order when other states—particularly the major great powers—are democracies rather than non-democracies” (Ikenberry, 2000, p. 103). The second interpretation characterizes it as “liberal” grand strategy. The third interpretation sees democracy promotion as advocating “democratic expansion” as a rationale or rhetoric for intervention that masks America’s external “imperial” agenda. The third interpretation understands U.S. democracy promotion more narrowly as a means of intervention to overthrow regimes without the use of military force. This understanding emphasizes the role of American nonprofit organizations in “color revolutions” in former Soviet bloc countries, such as the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush Administration, in parallel with the war on terrorism, promoted democratization in the Middle East to prevent the outbreak of terrorism. In his NED (National Endowment for Democracy) 20th Anniversary speech in November 2003, Bush declared the “Advancement of Freedom in the Middle East” as the new U.S. strategy after the Iraq war. This new strategy was announced externally by then vice-president Cheney in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2004. In late February 2004, the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat published a draft of the Greater Middle East Plan on democratization, which was to be finalized in July of that year at a summit held on Sea Island (U.S.). Arab countries opposed this plan, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt sending a joint letter to the Bush administration opposing the plan. In the face of such opposition to the “advance of freedom” strategy of the Arab countries, the cooperation of the EU countries, which are allies of the U.S. and have strong diplomatic and economic influence in the Middle East, was indispensable to promote the Middle East democratization plan, and the European agreement to promote the Middle East democratization as a joint US-European project was necessary before the summit in July. The agreement of the European side to promote the democratization of the Middle East as a joint US-European project was necessary. However, the European response to the plan was extremely tepid (Youngs, 2004, pp. 2–5).

In a speech in London on May 24, 2004, EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten warned against the U.S. plan to democratize the Middle East, saying, ‘Developing democracy is not like making instant coffee’ (Patten, 2004, p. 7). The disagreement between U.S. and European democracies, between “Bottom-Up” and “Top-Down” approaches to democracy, can be seen as a factor in the June 9 Sea Island Summit. The Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) partnership was announced at the Sea Island Summit. The announcement of the BMENA Partnership Initiative can be seen as a turning point in the realization of the U.S. concept of democratizing the Middle East, in that the U.S. and Europe agreed to work together to promote democracy in the Middle East and North Africa as a joint project (Wittes, 2004, pp. 75–77; German Marshall Fund of the United States and Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, 2004).

The “Trap” of liberalizing authoritarian regimes

Many authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have not only failed to contain radical Islamic ideology but have also encouraged anti-Western sentiment as an outlet for domestic grievances. The Bush administration sought to address this by extending the boundaries of U.S. democracy to the Middle East and the Islamic world. The essence was to create channels for democratic institutions to function as voices of dissent against orders that would contribute to social improvement. A review of the democratization process in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the countries at the center of the U.S. initiative to democratize the Middle East, shows that in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s rule was removed and national elections were held under direct U.S. control, Shiite Islamic forces grew. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been under U.S. pressure for democratization and political reform, although to different degrees due to differences in political structures; however, both have faced the political rise of groups with religious ideological backgrounds under such democratic institutions. Since 2005, the governments in both countries have shifted from democratization to repression, as they observe the general decline of U.S. influence in the Middle East. In this political process, the liberal political forces that the U.S. initially hoped for failed to organize the population through democratic institutions, including elections. Regarding this process, Brumberg pointed to the “liberalized tyranny trap,” in which non-liberal Islamists become the dominant opposition force, while Democrats are buried between despotic leaders and Islamists (Brumberg, 2002, p. 57).

Let us examine this process from the perspective of the kind of structural changes the U.S. approach to democratization has brought to society under authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have different characteristics from the bureaucratic authoritarian regimes that O’Donnell characterized in Latin American countries, and through their analysis of Syria and Iraq, Sakai and Aoyama characterized authoritarian regimes in the Middle East as “soft” authoritarian rule (O’Donnell, 1973). Sakai and Aoyama stated that the authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, which are republics, have divided their power structures into an “official” and an “unofficial” part, with the latter taking control of the physical apparatus of violence that forces society into submission, while trying to make the various groups that make up society participate in the former as much as possible, thus making society as a whole dependent on the state (Sakai and Aoyama, 2005, p. 5). Hirschman also regarded authoritarianism as an attempt “to defuse mass mobilization and to turn the citizens into very private person” (Hirschman, 1984, p. 98) and to exclude citizens from the public sphere (Yano, 2004, p. 173). From this perspective, the “bottom–up approach” of the U.S. From this perspective, the “bottom-up approach” of the U.S. created a channel through which objections that had been suppressed under authoritarian regimes in the direction of public action could erupt through the public channel of democratic institutions. However, this mechanism does not seem to have produced diplomatic results in the U.S. The historian Hobsbawm described the U.S. spreading democracy as “not merely quixotic-it is dangerous,” because it ultimately only exacerbated ethnic conflicts and caused national divisions (Hobsbawm, 2004, p. 40). U.S. pressure for democratization has led the people of the Middle East to turn to public action. The question now is whether these public actions will break out of the “liberalization trap of authoritarian regimes” and reconstruct a public space different from authoritarianism.

American democracy has functioned as the fundamental principle that unites nations through catabolism and assimilation. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were a clear challenge to the U.S. hegemonic order, arising from the gap between the expansion of the sphere of influence beyond its borders through imperialization and the lack of a sense of the imperial self. In restructuring the international order after the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration sought to extend the boundaries of American democracy to the Islamic Middle East. The essence was to create channels for democratic institutions to function as voices of dissent against orders that would contribute to social betterment. Whether or not political and economic stability can be brought to the “imperial” international order through democracy and economic prosperity will largely depend on the success of this attempt.

Can elections in democracies be manipulated?

With respect to China, an emerging group of digital despots controlled by censorship, which some have accused of being a totalitarian prison state and likened to Orwell’s 1984, what about the U.S. and other Western nations whose elections are the basis of a democratic government (Orwell, 2020)? What about Western countries? Does American democracy work? The news that came out in March 2018 that personal data held on Facebook were used by the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election was surprising. According to the news, a British company, Cambridge Analytica, collected personal data (big data) of 87 million Facebook users–profiles, friendships, and information about what posts they liked–and analyzed it using AI. The company then used AI to analyze the data and create political advertisements with detailed voter targeting. It was also revealed that Cambridge Analytica was involved in elections in 68 countries, including Ukraine, to manipulate public opinion. Cambridge Analytica’s micromarketing method uses big data to understand the individual characteristics and political leanings of voters, which cannot be understood by humans. While ads that appear on social networking sites do not determine which party a voter will vote for, they can foster anger and anxiety without the voter realizing this. However, they can foster anger and fear and influence voting behavior without the voter being aware. This destroys the principle of democracy in which each individual participates in political decision-making.

How should one view the January 6 United States Capitol attack, in which Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol? This question has attracted the interest of sociologists and political scientists but has yet to be clarified. One hypothesis is that the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol might not have been aware that they were in fact doing so, and that the anger and anxiety they felt might have influenced their behavior. In the U.S., AI and social networks have come to influence elections, the very foundation of democracy. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential elections to Joe Biden and left the White House. These elections were reminiscent of ancient Athenian practice of ostracism, in which any citizen including political leaders could be forced into temporary exile from the country. Just as in ostracism, Trump returned to the U. S President after a period of time by winning the 2024 presidential elections.

Democracy and Tyranny in the digital age

Former U.S. President Biden held the Democracy Summit held on to the Web on December 9–10, 2021 (USAID, 2021). He invited the countries that recognize democracy as a national value, such as the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan, while he did not invite so-called non-democratic countries, such as China and Russia. Unlike democracies that require universal suffrage and a multiparty system, they are called despotic or authoritarian states. In the future, the division and confrontation between the former (democratic states) led by the U.S., and the latter (despotic states) led by China, is expected to become the basic axis of world affairs.

What are the geopolitical views of democracy and tyranny in today’s digital age? These concerns democracy and human rights. After the 911 terrorist attacks and the Iraq War, the U.S. tried to implement the Middle East Democratization Program Plan, a plan to democratize a group of authoritarian regimes; however, this plan failed, and the Middle East is in chaos. In particular, Syria-Iraq and its border areas are now in a chaotic state. Currently, the U.S. is trying to promote democratic diplomacy, especially in East Asia.

Emerging digital tyranny countries

The current conflict between the U.S. and China has been called the “Sino–American New Cold War.” In reality, this is a Sino–American Cold War in which value conflicts over democracy and human rights are fought in and mirrored in both the cyber and real worlds, unlike the traditional confrontation between nations or ideological confrontation during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In the Sino–American Cold War, China is introducing cheap 5G smartphones and base stations to African and Southeast Asian countries participating in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative such as Ethiopia and Cambodia. These countries are known as emerging digital tyranny countries. The political leaders of these countries have established national control systems in the form of CCTV and data censorship (Kendall-Taylor, Frantz, and Wright, 2020, p.109). I call these societies “information management societies,” following the terminology in Karl Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism (water management societies). In terms of economic and population growth, these developing countries may be able to achieve economic growth through digital technology, whereas the developed countries of the U.S., Europe, and Japan are facing structural problems of aging and declining populations, and their national power is declining. In this case, emerging digital nations may set standards for the next generation in terms of technology and values, and the Cold War between the U.S. and China may tilt toward China’s dominance.

How should we examine the geopolitical dynamics of economic growth in emerging digital nations, such as China and some countries in African continent? Andrea Kendall-Taylor found that the China model collects vast amounts of data, from individual and corporate tax refunds to bank statements, shopping history, criminal records, and medical records, which are then analyzed by AI to create and manage social credit scores for individuals and companies. Depending on one’s social credit score, renting an apartment, for example, can be cheaper and more convenient (Kendall-Taylor, Frantz, and Wright, 2020, pp. 109-110). They are then building the Great Firewall (Digital Great Wall) and the Digital Silk Road so that only their Internet system can be used with anti-establishment content removed from it. The Chinese government and Chinese IT platform (BATH) operate the Beijing model. The Beijing model is not limited to China but has been transplanted to emerging digital state houses in Africa and elsewhere (Kendall-Taylor, Frantz, and Wright, 2020). As for the thesis that “digitization drives democratization,” in the 2000s there has been an optimism but in the 2010s and 2020s optimism shifted to pessimism. While citizen communication through social networking sites played a major role in anti-government protests by citizens of Middle Eastern countries, known as the Arab Spring” in the 2000s, today’s digital authoritarian states often have the government side using big data and AI to monitor citizens. In the past, authoritarian state regimes hired and trained spies to monitor traditional threats - military elites and government officials, but this was very expensive. By contrast, big data/AI surveillance technologies have now advanced to the point where dictatorships can automatically monitor and track popular rebel movements in a much more non-intrusive way than ever before. These African authoritarian regimes have transplanted the Beijing model of the most advanced countries in the field of digital repression technology to their own countries, adopting Chinese smartphone-based equipment, such as Huawei, for hardware. In today’s digital authoritarian states, governments often use big data and AI to monitor their citizens.

Color revolutions

The “color revolutions” of citizens against the regimes since the end of the Cold War (1989 Czech Velvet Revolution, 2003 Georgia Rose Revolution, 2004 Ukraine Orange Revolution, and 2005 Kyrgyzstan Tulip Revolution) were successful in the Christian East-Central Europe. The Arab Spring (e.g., 2010 Tunisian Jasmine Revolution) was successful in democratization projects in the Islamic world, but it did not spread to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, resulting in an “Arab Winter” in Middle Eastern countries, including the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In China, the Umbrella Revolution (2014) in Hong Kong failed, and the white paper movement against the Xi Jinping administration’s zero-corruption policy subsided.

“Chinese-Style” democracy

The Xi administration does not reject democracy per se. Rather, it claims that China created a Chinese-style democracy rather than directly imitating the Western democratic model. The Xi government points out that humanity’s quest for and practice of democracy will never stop and criticizes that the real obstacle to humanity’s democratic enterprise is not different in democratic models but arrogance, prejudice, and hostility toward other countries’ democratic aspirations and the way they impose their own models on other countries. In response to the Democracy Summit hosted by Biden, the Chinese government issued a white paper on democracy.

What should be considered here is what kind of social principle is Confucianism, the social principle of China and Taiwan, the influence of which can be said to exist in East Asian countries such as North and South Korea, Singapore, and Japan? How can democracy be compared with Christianity and democracy, or Islam and democracy? In his book, Gendai Chugoku no Shakai to Kodogenri [The Logic of Chinese Behaviors], Zhai used the gourd model to describe Chinese society. Zhai compared the structure of Chinese society with that of a gourd (Zhai, 2019). The two bulges at the top and bottom of the gourd represent the “upper class—the bureaucracy” and the “lower class—the people.” The emperor reigns at the top of the gourd, with an open gourd drinking spout connected to heaven. Although there is a clear division between the “bureaucracy” and the “people,” it is not completely closed. Unlike the medieval European society and India’s caste system, China’s hierarchical society is fluid in terms of advancement and social mobility. The civil service exam provides an opportunity for upward mobility. There are no permanent bureaucrats or citizens in China, and there is constant turnover (Zhai, 2019, pp. xi–xii). Zhai’s gourd model suggests that a system has worked in Chinese society in which the will of the people is reflected in policy without going through elections, parliaments, or political party systems. Democracy is a political system in which rulers are chosen through elections, whereas Confucianism (here, in my terminology, Confucianocracy) is a system in which the ruler/elite is assumed by name and reputation, without elections.

Is democracy of Western origin?

Can democracy be said to be of Western origin? Anthropologist Graeber argued in his book Minshushugi no Hi-seiyouteki kigen nituite [Non-European Origin of Democracy originally in French, La Démocratie aux marges] that ancient Athens was a militaristic, slave-owning society based on a political decision-making system in a society based on the systematic oppression of women and that modern democracy is the product of an impossible grafting of the political system of decision-making in Athenian society, which was based on institutional female oppression, and liberal democracy after this French Revolution and the American Revolution. This grafting is a fragile one. Democratic practices and egalitarian decision-making processes can be effective sometimes. Although they often produce better results than dictatorships, the latter system occurs almost everywhere. For example, it can be found in Africa, Asia, and across the world, and is not necessarily of Athenian origin. Thus, democratic practice is not unique to any particular civilization or tradition, and it occurs wherever human life operates outside of a coercive institutional structure (Graeber, 2020, pp. 7–14, 117).

Are people in liberal democratic nations free, and should countries that share these values be prepared for cyberattacks and other types of attacks from countries of concern? Are the values of democracy, freedom, and human rights, especially the core concepts of democracy, Western concepts, or concepts of Western origin? The anthropologist David Graeber presents the antithesis of this idea in his Minshushugi no Hi-seiyouteki kigen nituite [Non-European Origin of Democracy originally in French, La Démocratie aux marges]. According to Graeber, democracy is a Western concept, and its history began in ancient Athens. In other words, since Athenian times, democracy has been represented by Rome, then by Western countries, and now by the U.S., which has inherited this Western civilization and democratic civilization from Greece and Rome. Rome represents the U.S. in its confrontation with Asia and the non-European world, or the non-European world in its confrontation with Western and American democracy. Is there any legitimacy to the view that the U.S. should confront Asia and the non-European world or that the non-European world should support the growth of societies into Western-style American democracies? Democracy, egalitarianism, and the state are inherently contradictory. Over the past 200 years, democrats have attempted to graft various ideals of popular self-government onto the state’s coercive apparatus. Ultimately, these attempts were unsuccessful. By its very nature, the state can never be democratized. In summary, the state is essentially nothing more than a means of organizing violence.

Confucian democracy

Confucianism (or “Confucianocracy”) is a system in which rulers/elites are assumed by name and credit, without elections. Fukuyama described the flogging of American high school student Michael Fay by Singapore authorities in 1994 for vandalism, highlighting the challenge that Asian societies pose to the U.S. and other Western democracies (Fukuyama, 1995, p. 20). Are Confucian and Western-style democracies fundamentally incompatible? Will Asia create a new political and economic order that is fundamentally different from Western capitalist democracies? Confucianism and democracy are less incompatible than in Asia and the West. The essence of postwar “modernization theory” is correct. Economic development tends to be followed by political liberalization. If Asia’s rapid economic development continues in recent years, democratization in the region will continue. Ultimately, however, the contours of Asian democracy may be very different from those of contemporary American democracy, which has experienced serious problems in reconciling individual rights with the interests of the larger community.

Cyber democracy

Currently, civil liberties, freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and privacy in the online space are compromised by government censorship, cyberattacks, fake news, and privacy invasion by private corporations. This subsection examines the reality of the crisis of social and political openness (cyber democracy) in online spaces that citizens and Internet companies should enjoy, and the multi-stakeholderism to realize it, based on Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005, p. 16). This subsection also discusses how the India-Pacific and the nature of democracy in online spaces in societies with Confucian cultural principles differ from Western cultural principles. Multi-stakeholderism does not assume that government policy alone can complete the process; rather, organizations and individuals from different positions in society, such as businesses, consumers, investors, workers, and NPOs, participate in the multi-stakeholder process, cooperate, and play their respective roles. The organizations and individuals that hold the key to solving these problems are called “stakeholders.” A “multi-stakeholder process” is a consensus-building framework in which a wide variety of stakeholders participate on an equal footing and work together to solve problems.

While technological change will change the state of society, citizens, not governments or corporations, will be the main actors in the changing society itself for the better. In the 2020s and 2030s, cyberspace will expand quantitatively and qualitatively, even dominating real space. In the 2020s and 2030s, cyberspace will expand quantitatively and qualitatively, even dominating real space. The rules of the mirror world consisting of both cyberspace and real space are the “law of the jungle.”

With the advancement of digital real twin technologies, smart cities, medical care and health, (e-)government, (automated) driving, and communication, disaster prevention and defense infrastructure is mutually transforming, requiring a pluralistic and stable order in cyberspace and a human perspective that can respond to these changes. To address this challenge, this study analyzes how democratic politics and human values change in cyberspace and considers what the core norms of ethics, human values, human rights, democracy, and fair governance based on these concepts should be for standards originating from Asia. This section explores the various forms of acceptance of digital technology by different Asian societies, which share many similarities with Japanese culture, to identify the direction of symbiosis. In terms of philosophical and ethical aspects, we explore the modern and international values of the Kyoto School, which is universal in the sense that it was formed when Asian societies encountered modern Western civilization, establish new norms and values originating from Asia through multidisciplinary research in Japanese and Asian philosophical humanities, and propose new ethical values, such as how far technology can and should be involved in “human” affairs. We develop a social design for the quantum world and human beings after the emergence of the singularity (the sudden technological evolution of interactive technologies, quantum computing, AI, space, and optical communications) expected in about the 2030s.

The fundamental principle of individuals proving and certifying their “identity” in cyberspace as their own entities, rather than being approved by external entities, such as IT platforms or governments, must be realized. In an environment in which this is realized, the problem of leakage and falsification of personal information does not exist in principle, and there is no concern about Top-Down demand for digital information submission, which is a peculiarity of this environment. Therefore, the integration of individuals into the cyber world is expected to advance dramatically, which will further accelerate the fusion of cyberspace and real space and can be a catalyst for disruptive innovation. This technology makes it possible to secure the fundamental human rights of individuals without the freedom of being taken away by others. The foundation of these human rights is the “right of certification” (Sakade, 2021, p. 3), that is, the right to be recognized as one’s self without relying on third parties, the right to continue to be recognized as an individual without relying on third parties, and the right not to have one’s right to recognition taken away or restricted by third parties (extending social rights and survival rights). To chart a course for the establishment of democracy and order in cyberspace, local governments should establish the “right of authentication” (the right to prove one’s identity), the “right of expression” (the right to express one’s will and imagination), and the “right of decision” (the right to decide matters concerning one’s self ).

People today are concerned about privacy issues in cyberspace. They seem to be afraid of privacy leaks in cyberspace. In exchange for convenience, should we allow our private information to become a source of profit for advertisers? A “digital enclosure” of personal information in cyberspace is underway. This is the logic of creating a vector for denying the dictatorship of cyberspace based on Hajime Tanabe’s Shu no Ronri [Logic of Species] (the formation of a connective layer of “species” regional autonomous space, as the connection between the universal or cyberspace and the individual (Tanabe, 2010). Would it be possible, through the construction of a “species” hierarchy, to construct an order of freedom in a mirror world consisting of cyberspace and real space?

In the transformation of cyberspace, which has expanded and layered based on the arrival of 5G and beyond 5G communication standards, securing individual rights and democratic elements based on natural rights (cyber democracy) is considered an issue. To respond to the challenges of democracy in cyberspace, this study examines the codes of conduct and cyber-related treaties necessary for the evolution and expansion of democratic governments as well as the framework for government regulation of cyber platform operators (giant IT companies) to ensure that these technologies are accepted by society and that the weak are not excluded. At the same time, we consider measures to achieve social inclusion that do not exclude the vulnerable as society accepts these technologies. In contrast to the various norms in cyberspace that have been led by Europe and the U.S., we establish norms as standards originating from Asia by incorporating Asian perspectives, even going back to the Kyoto School of thought, contributing to the formation of a pluralistic and stable order in cyberspace in 21^st-century society.

Dramatic innovations in digital technology are transforming the functions and values of traditional society. It has been widely discussed in Society 5.0 and the Mirror World argument that a new level of reunification of digital space and real space will arrive in the near future. However, there is still no clear vision of the norms required for such an interface society despite the high demand for such norms from government and business. There is an urgent need to examine the ethical, humanistic, and human rights concepts that form the core of norms, as well as the nature of democracy and just governance based on these concepts.

In today’s multi-stakeholder processes based on the IoT, not only people but also things are connected in real time, and the modern dichotomy of “subject–object” (“society–nature”) is in the process of being broken down. ANT is effective in this regard, as Latour assumed that humans are not pure “subjects,” non-humans are not pure “objects,” and certain actions/behaviors cannot be reduced to subjects or objects but are created in the context of a series of quasi-subjects and quasi-objects (Latour, 2005,p.46).

This technology makes it possible to secure the basic human rights of individuals without the freedom to be taken away by others. The foundation of these human rights is the “right of certification” (Sakade, 2021, p. 3), that is, the right to be recognized as oneself without relying on a third party, and the right not to have one’s right to recognition removed or restricted by a third party (extension of social rights and the right to life).