Francis Fukuyama

It's quasi-market-based, and they are very successful at marshalling new technology.

They're capable of innovating a lot of things we thought they weren't able to do.

And conversely, a democracy, especially American democracy,

looks like it's falling apart.

If I were somebody trying to move from a poor, misgoverned country somewhere else, I would have chosen the United States without question for most of the last several decades.

But these days, I'm not sure that it's such an attractive model for many people.

And I would say if the Chinese keep their development machine going, it may turn out that they have a real alternative.

I think, however, that it's a little premature to come to that conclusion because there are a lot of problems in China which are related to the fact that there's no feedback, there's no responsiveness to public opinion, and that is going to get them into trouble, I think, in the long run.

Well, I can tell you what I mean.

I think that a liberal political system is one in which government authority is limited by a rule of law and by constitutional checks and balances.

It's a way of preventing the government, the executive, from violating the rights of ordinary citizens, from interfering too much in markets and ordinary activity of citizens.

And it's really that

obedience to law that is at the core of what I regard as a liberal political system.

Now, it has other connotations in other parts of the world.

So if you say liberal in Europe, it means that you're kind of very pro-free market, you're anti-regulation and that sort of thing.

But I don't think that the economic interpretation of liberalism is, for me, the key thing.

The key thing is that the state should be limited by law

And there should be checks and balances to prevent violations of individual rights by the government.

Well, it's complicated because, first of all, there are now several different definitions of conservatism.

You know, conservatism could mean that you simply want to preserve as much of the past tradition as possible.