• What's going on in Asian politics?earth concept - asia image by Orlando Florin Rosu from Fotolia.com
  
  Asian countries are led by several types of governments, with many states modeling their systems after British, French or American democracies. However, there are also states with closed, single-party regimes that pay little attention to the outside world and even less heed to international cries of human rights abuses. While constitutional monarchies and democratic republics are widespread in Asia, these governments do not tell the whole story of the politics in the region.
  
  

Republic

• Many countries in Asia function under a republic-style government, with the division of power into several branches and different political parties from which to choose. Officials are elected to terms of a specified length and are chosen by the voters in democratic elections. Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, South Korea and Sri Lanka are just some of the countries that function under this type of government.
  
  

Constitutional Monarchy

• The Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are part of the British Commonwealth. They independently operate their own parliamentary governments, but their ceremonial head of state is the Queen of England. Other Asian states, including Bhutan, Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand also operate under this system, with ceremonial kings or queens as the official heads of state.
  
  

Communist Republic

• China and North Korea both consider themselves republics, but have remained under the control of the Communist Party since the 1940s. They both maintain rigid control of their citizens and have remained relatively closed societies since the beginning of their communist rule. Vietnam also maintains a communist regime, but the Vietnamese people enjoy more economic and social freedom.
  
  

Special Administrative Region

• Hong Kong and Macau are both "Special Administrative Regions" of China that have Western influence and a Parliamentary-style government, thanks to their history as part of the British Commonwealth. They both gained independence from Britain in the 1990s.
  
  

Military Regime

• The state of Burma is ruled by a military regime with a strong executive branch and no consistent parliament or judicial system in place. The country has been plagued with internal struggles and democratic protests since the current military took control in 1988.