Bush offers China some good advice...

And, he's right - Taiwan is a model of a terrific democracy.

PRESIDENT BUSH began a week-long tour of Asia yesterday with an appeal for greater freedom in the remaining dictatorships in the region and a warning to China that its democratic reforms cannot be reversed.

In remarks that were irritably rejected by the Chinese leadership, Mr Bush unfavourably compared their one-party State with democratic Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own.

I lived in Asia for 5 1/2 years, and visited Taiwan about 25 times (as well as China). Taiwan has some good lessons for most of Asia - they now produce about 60% of the world's computers and computer peripherals (although much of that is moving to China through the relocation of factories from Taiwan). The standard of life in Taiwan has increased many times from the 1960s...