Quite simply, the electoral and representation system of many Asian countries are fascinating. Take Japan, which uses a mixture of multi-member constituencies and proportional representation for the remainder. This system was instituted after Japan's only coalition government post-world war II, due to the fact that even with multi-member constituencies a single party (the LDP) was able to rule the country without any serious opposition. The electoral reforms produced... More single party rule by the LDP! Beyond this, it gets boring, due to the nature of Japanese politicians to be sensitive to opposition views and to form a consensus.

Or what about South Korea... post division, it was effectively ruled as a military dictatorship for most of its history until international attention prior to the Seoul Olympics in the late 80s gave activists enough wiggle room to start demanding democratic reforms... Yet South Korea was heralded as the "good korea" by western nations throughout the cold war.

China's flirtation with capitalism and the undoing of the cultural revolution is obviously having a serious impact on western economies, its a growing world power, but none of these changes are resulting in democratic reforms, as was the case for the former soviet union and eastern European "communist" states.

This is a part of the world housing some of the world's oldest civilizations, and as a result, you have some very interesting political dynamics.