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 contexts, we can come to a pragmatic and tolerant understanding of differences and communicate more effectively.