@Remington @Samhydeigger @Glowberg_Fedstein @Insomnolant @LukeAlmighty @Umlauts A lot of this has to do with the sudden shock importation of liberalism into East Asian countries during the Cold War. While the West, or at least Europe, saw the slow rise liberal capitalism giving it both an opportunity to develop counter narratives (Various Catholic social teachings, Prussian socialism) culminating in the various fascist ideologies and witness some reversals to liberalism itself, such as the defeat of the 1848 revolutions and its collapse following the First World War in various Eastern European states, Asia has had no real theoretical for dealing with it before it was dumped on them, fully formed, in its most powerful state, and backed by the worlds leading superpower.
Thus while the West has always had some stumbling blocks that have necessitated various compromises such as social democracy or social partnership arrangements and the like that have, if not really slowed Liberalism then at least forced it to take certain uncomfortable measures that undermined its own perceived universality.
In East Asia however there really isn't anything to stop liberalism as a totality:
Previous Government forms? All essentially outdated feudal forms that cannot oppose materialist philosophy (Remember in West Napoleon, the great liberal slayer of antiquated regimes, was in the end defeated)
Religions? A unfortunate mixture of weak social teachings coupled weak and disunited presence (Throne and Altar being a significant torn in the side of liberalism in the West).
Forging your own path? Only Japan managed it and their defeat put an end to it.
Basically what I'm saying is that in the West we have a sort spiritual memory of liberalism as small belief, outside the mainstream political discourse really confined to a selection of intellectuals that grew into what it is today. This means we understand liberalism as a thing which can be subject to changes or errors. In effect we understand it can be wrong and we can offer some resistance to it.
In the East it has always been one of the two dominant ideological systems (the other being Marxist Communism) that can be chosen in order to advance into modernity. There can be no change or interruption to it, because it isn't something that is malleable in that way. It simply washes over them.