Thinking about democracy with French cuisine

Time flies so fast..

The meeting with an editorial chief of an English journal was interesting.
We had a wonderful dinner at a french restaurant in top floor of a hotel. The course with seafood appetizer, onion soup, roasted duck and two desserts were great. The volume was not enough for me, though..

Anyway, we discussed over energy, pension, relation with China and of course Japan-US relation. Among them, there was a deep topic, "is democracy universal?". Maybe not, as we could see many different institutions over the world. However, as some scholar commented in the dinner, "liberalism should be universal". He gave us an example of the case, Iran. Well, while Iranian people could vote, it is not democracy. But in terms of liberalism, they have some of them even though still limited.

The talk was abstract but rare opportunity for me to think about.
Actually, it could be linked to a fundamental question of American foreign policy.