> “And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn't be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters — who your neighbor is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit ... or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think.” Lee Kuan Yew, April 20, 1987.

Taiwan was "civilized" by 50 years of Japanese occupation that wasn't brutal or repressive as Korea. Though I think Taiwan was more of a backwater island nation when the Japanese came. Likewise for Hong Kong with Britain. Taiwan and Hong Kong sort of organically grew into and internalized the modern legal and business structures laid down by the occupiers. China is having to do what Lee Kuan Yew did, which was transform an unruly, anarchic, but otherwise sophisticated culture into one that obeys and values modern legal, rules-based norms.