Democratic peace theory - what relevance for East Asia?

Summary of a paper delivered by Roland Rich on the relevance of democratic peace theory to East Asia. Democratic peace theory holds that while liberal democracies may go to war with non-liberal states, they remain at peace with each other, in other words democracies do not fight each other. While the theory may hold some truth for consolidated democracies, this paper draws attention to the argument by Mansfield and Snyder that transitional democracies tend to be more war-prone in their international relations