在《民主先生在中國》一書中，貝淡寧試圖進行東西方民主對話，因此以德謨為西方代表，與羅先生、李光耀和王教授三位東方代表借用香港、新加坡和北京為場景，進行了數場虛擬論爭。本文認為論爭雖然點出了今世許多熱門的民主議題，卻值得反思這些議題背後的預設和解決論爭的方法，因此提出需要思考今世假設具有民主差異的雙方，是否真的存在？論爭存在意義為何？若真的存在，雙方或多方是否僅是單一脈絡下的產物？觀察是否需要更清楚地界定被觀察標的所處的時空脈絡？本文大致認為唯有進入實存脈絡，才能夠更務實地理解差異，進而包容，產生更佳的溝通效果。

In East Meets West, Daniel Bell attempted to advance a dialogue on
democracy between East and West. The book includes three fictitious debates between Sam Demo, a proponent of Western liberal democracy, and three East Asian critics: Joseph Lo, a Hong Kong businessman and human rights activist; Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s former prime minister; and Professor Wang, a Mainland Chinese professor and political philosopher. While Bell’s work highlights several widely debated issues regarding democracy in today’s world, it is necessary to reflect on the assumptions underlying these issues and the methods used to resolve debates surrounding them.
This paper suggests that it is necessary to reflect on whether the assumed differences between East Asian and Western conceptions of democracy highlighted in Bell’s fictitious dialogues in fact exist? If they do exist, are the arguments of the two sides rooted in the same context? In trying to understand different conceptions of democracy, we need to examine the context from which they emerge.. If we explore these