Freedom Barometer Asia 2012 by Miklos Romandy, Pett Jarupaiboon, Corinna Johannsen

Foreword to the 2012 edition of the Freedom Barometer Asia By Dr. Rainer Adam, Regional Director, Southeast and East Asia, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Bangkok, Thailand I am proud to present to you this fourth edition of our Freedom Barometer Asia. Our efforts to measure freedom in its main dimensions - political, legal and economic - have been blessed by further progress. Now that we have four data sets, we have been able to carry out a variety of tests enabling us to overcome the fact that we mix data from various sources and base years. We do this in order to have the newest and freshest data available for our readers. Thereby we avoid the drawback to present ìold dataî, as in some index reports suffering from delays of two or more years. We tested a data set where all sources referred to 2010 as base year and compared it with a data set that included the newest data for the same year 2012. The outcome is elucidating. It confirmed our earlier hypothesis that the differences are not significant, so that the presentation of the newest data does not lead to distortions. For the 17 countries in our survey, no position change occurred for the first ten in the list (Japan to Thailand). Cambodia changed position only because in 2012 it was included for the first time in the Economic Freedom of the World Index. Therefore in 2012, we had a complete data set available for the first time. As a result Cambodia went up from position 15 to 11, thereby displacing the former 11th place Vietnam and all subsequent countries sending them down one position. Otherwise no change occurred in the ranking of the countries included in the study. The total score deviation of each country in percentage points ranged from +0.58% for South Korea to -5.23% for the Philippines for the countries in the first ten positions of our ranking. For the last four countries (North Korea, Laos, Brunei and Myanmar) the deviations were more drastic, ranging from +10% to -25%, which is significant. However, since these countries do not possess full data sets anyway and their rankings were also not affected, these differences are negligible as regards the overall outcome of our Freedom Barometer. For 2012, we have now complete data sets for 13 countries and territories (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and China). For the four remaining countries (Myanmar, Brunei, Laos and North Korea) we have only partial data, but we continue including them in our survey. The very fact that the data sets are not complete is also an indication that these countries are not free. Otherwise governments would make the missing data available and/or international organisations would have access to the relevant data sources. As regards Myanmar, we have seen tremendous positive change in 2012. To the amazement of many democracy analysts, the transition from a military regime to a more open polity has run smoothly. The by-elections in April 2012 were deemed free and fair by observers and democracy watch organisations. Since the set of economic freedom indicators is complete and only the variable ìIndependence of the Judiciaryî is missing, we are cautiously optimistic that Myanmar will make some progress in subsequent years if the current political reforms are continued. All countries with full data sets have increased their freedom score with the exception of Hong Kong (-1.3%), Singapore (-0.1%), South Korea (-0.56%) and Vietnam (-1.86%). Japan maintained the number one spot and leads the ranking as the freest country in Asia. The nations that have improved most in our Freedom Barometer are Thailand (+8.2%), Malaysia (+3.5%) and Taiwan (+2.4%). A further important change we introduced in 2012 is our data source on human rights. From this year on we will use the data sets provided by Maplecroft, a British consultancy. All previous data sets were changed accordingly, since Maplecroft made also data available so that we could adjust the sets for the previous years. However, in order to avoid duplication with other data sources, we did not use all 31 variables, selecting only 20 from Maplecroft. Last year we decided to include Hong Kong in our Freedom Barometer. We felt that because of Hong Kongës special status within the Peopleës Republic of China, it deserved a chapter of its own. As 2012 marked the 15th anniversary of Hong Kongís handover to China, we decided to put a spotlight on Hong Kongís development since 1997. Our first-ever Freedom Barometer Special Report examines if 15 years of ìone country, two systemsî has changed the territoryís status as one of the major financial hubs of the world. We hope that you will enjoy our findings. Our website www.freedombarometer.org has also been further improved. It allows you to compare selected data sets and countries with each other as far as our freedom score is concerned. We will strive for further improvements next year. Your comments and suggestions are, as always, highly welcome. I hope you will find our newest Freedom Barometer Asia as useful as previous editions. I wish you a pleasant and informative journey through our Freedom score. Freedom Barometer Asia 2012