Many developing countries have already come to learn that democracy doesn't solve all their problems. For them, China's example is important. Its recent success and the failures of the West offer a stark contrast. To be sure, China's political model will never supplant electoral democracy because, unlike the latter, it does not pretend to be universal. It cannot be exported. But its success does show that many systems of political governance can work when they are congruent with a country's culture and history. The significance of China's success, then, is not that China provides the world with an alternative but that it demonstrates that successful alternatives exist. Twenty-four years ago, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama predicted that all countries would eventually adopt liberal democracy and lamented that the world would become a boring place because of that. Relief is on the way. A more interesting age may be upon us. 

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"Reprinted by permission of FOREIGN AFFAIRS, (January/February 2013). Copyright 2013 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. ()