Taiwan ranked top "full democracy" in Asia

Courtesy of ICRT

Taiwan has retained its ranking as the No. 1 "full democracy" in Asia in the 2022 Democracy Index. However, the island's global standing dropped two places from the previous year.

The index is published by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Globally, Taiwan is ranked in 10th position, down from eighth in 2021, scoring 8.99 out of 10.

The index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.

It assesses the state of democracy in 167 countries and territories worldwide. Taiwan is the only country in Asia listed in the top 10 worldwide. Norway topped the global rankings with a score of 9.81.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has been rated the freest country in Asia by the 2022 Human Freedom Index. The index is jointly published by the Cato Institute and Fraser Institute.

It ranks the level of freedom in countries and territories based on 83 criteria spread across 12 categories.

Taiwan had the most freedom when it comes to religion, scoring 9.9 on a scale of 1-10. That's followed by security and safety with 9.5 and association, assembly and civil society, which scored 9.4.

The area in which Taiwan performed worst was the freedom to trade internationally, scoring 6.3. Taiwan ranks 14th out of 165 jurisdictions around the world.

Switzerland and New Zealand place first and second.