It seems to be a very common theme in Western journalism to describe Asian countries as dystopias or dystopias in the making. Often this is based on the idea of a dystopia floating around in Western pop culture, influenced by books like Big Brother or Brave New World.
This comes with a habit of putting these societies in contrast with the western societies, and claiming the obvious superiority of the latter. This sentiment could be paraphrased as "these people are surely living in hell, and that's because they don't know how to preserve their freedom".
It's also phrased as a warning to their own people: "be careful about all those new political ideas, or we'll end up like those Asians (or Africans)".
This to me seems very much like a mixture of arrogance and ignorance which leads Westerners to believe that things are the best where they live, and it's so because they're just so smart that they could set things up this way, and they have the best culture.
It's bizarre if you take a step back and think about it, as if they're collectively patting themselves on the back, and at the same time are trying to convince themselves that the issues that they're having are nothing in comparison to the issues that others have.
This comes with a habit of putting these societies in contrast with the western societies, and claiming the obvious superiority of the latter. This sentiment could be paraphrased as "these people are surely living in hell, and that's because they don't know how to preserve their freedom".
It's also phrased as a warning to their own people: "be careful about all those new political ideas, or we'll end up like those Asians (or Africans)".
This to me seems very much like a mixture of arrogance and ignorance which leads Westerners to believe that things are the best where they live, and it's so because they're just so smart that they could set things up this way, and they have the best culture.
It's bizarre if you take a step back and think about it, as if they're collectively patting themselves on the back, and at the same time are trying to convince themselves that the issues that they're having are nothing in comparison to the issues that others have.