Normally the argument is going based on some common cultural trait (e.g. confucianism) and while cultural factors can obvs be important, normally that's an orientalizing move insofar as it brushed away other historical economic, social and other cultural developments to reduce it to some single thing which gets essentialized as asianness by most westerners, also as if culture was not always already mediated by the broader socio-economic context where it's being carried out. Like in all the 'Yellow Peril' discourse you see about China, and which the West use to do about Japan, it often made reference to the supposed lack of value placed on individual liberty, lack of belief in the value of life, and alot of other liberal western-supremacist dog whistles, which were then normalized to explain externally perceived problems of those societies. Obvs it would be inconvenient for liberals to point out that the common factor in every case, which is not unique to East Asia, is being puppets of Western imperialism and having the latter's pro-capital accumulation values instilled into your very constitutions while under military occupation, leading to unbridled alienation, depression, and overwork for the Line-God (Moloch).
Why would being east asian factor into this?
Normally the argument is going based on some common cultural trait (e.g. confucianism) and while cultural factors can obvs be important, normally that's an orientalizing move insofar as it brushed away other historical economic, social and other cultural developments to reduce it to some single thing which gets essentialized as asianness by most westerners, also as if culture was not always already mediated by the broader socio-economic context where it's being carried out. Like in all the 'Yellow Peril' discourse you see about China, and which the West use to do about Japan, it often made reference to the supposed lack of value placed on individual liberty, lack of belief in the value of life, and alot of other liberal western-supremacist dog whistles, which were then normalized to explain externally perceived problems of those societies. Obvs it would be inconvenient for liberals to point out that the common factor in every case, which is not unique to East Asia, is being puppets of Western imperialism and having the latter's pro-capital accumulation values instilled into your very constitutions while under military occupation, leading to unbridled alienation, depression, and overwork for the Line-God (Moloch).