How would human rights fare in a pan-Asian union?

I came across someone's map on deviantART a couple months ago.

https://ottovonsuds.deviantart.com/art/Japan-moves-south-in-1914-336329880

japan_moves_south_in_1914_by_ottovonsuds-d5k8pso.png


At first, I was interested in the scenario: cooperation instead of animosity between Japan, Korea, and China? Sounds good.
Things got a bit interesting in the 1930s. The depression hit roughly as bad as OTL in most parts of the world. America got it worse than OTL, due to Zangara's bullet failing to miss. On the positive side of things Japan did manage to avoid going ultranationalist. America under first the Taft then Wallace administrations was a bit too busy to get into the second great war. France fell but took longer due to less Nazi luck. Hitler made lots of boneheaded desisions. Chinese, Japanese and Korean support ensured that allied victory happened despite America's failure to get involved.

The world's new superpower, is the economic, political and military alliance in East Asia, which is called The Three Dragons. These three nations are right-wing, capitalistic democracies and all are richer than the equivilant area of OTL. Korean and Japanese per capita GDP is around $60,000 while China's is around $18,000. Also, more populous -- There are 160 million Japanese, 95 million Koreans and 1.5 billion Chinese. This is a world that avoided the megadeaths of the warlord era and Pacific war. Japan never went politically insane and by the 1930s became a politically turbulant, less corrupt, more left-wing democracy than our Japan.

But then I came across this (bolded for emphasis):
The Three Dragons have three allies which are open apartheid states. The leaders in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing lack western idealism on human rights and care more about oil and minerals. This suits Salisbury, Algiers and Pretoria just fine. South Africa and Rhodesia still remain states dominated by the Rhodesian Front or the National Party, but there was more reform of the system than we saw 1948-1993 in otl. There is a sizable group of blacks who have citizenship and equal rights attained due to service in the army/security forces/police. The trendline is heading towards black rule, but rule by long-term veterans of the security forces in a fascistic regime. Besides South Africa and Rhodesia, the other big reactionary white-ruled state is French Algeria. This is a fascist dictatorship ruled by the para colonels, the harkis, those elements of the french right who fled to algeria following the revolution of '68 and various local muslim loyalists.

And I wondered, are human rights an exclusively western concept? I tried inquiring the map maker on this a couple of months ago, asking how human rights are a "western ideal" when "the west" had spent centuries being hypocritical about that (and the United States, ideally the bastion of freedom and democracy, had backed a lot of dictatorships during the Cold War as long as they were against communism). Then for some reason my comment was flagged as spam. To this day, I still don't know why.
 
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I came across someone's map on deviantART a couple months ago.

https://ottovonsuds.deviantart.com/art/Japan-moves-south-in-1914-336329880

japan_moves_south_in_1914_by_ottovonsuds-d5k8pso.png


At first, I was interested in the scenario: cooperation instead of animosity between Japan, Korea, and China? Sounds good.




But then I came across this (bolded for emphasis):


And I wondered, are human rights an exclusively western concept? I tried inquiring the map maker on this a couple of months ago, asking how human rights are a "western ideal" when "the west" had spent centuries being hypocritical about that (and the United States, ideally the bastion of freedom and democracy, had backed a lot of dictatorships during the Cold War as long as they were against communism). Then for some reason my comment was flagged as spam. To this day, I still don't know why.

Backing brutal anti-communist dictatorships? That's nothing compared to what the US has done TTL what with eating Mexico and all.
 
Backing brutal anti-communist dictatorships? That's nothing compared to what the US has done TTL what with eating Mexico and all.
That was apparently done out of desperation with the rise of the East Asian alliance as a superpower. But the idea that "human rights are inherently a western value and would not exist in an Asian alliance" troubles me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_values
Asian values was a political ideology of the 1990s, which defined elements of society, culture and history common to the nations of Southeast and East Asia. It aimed to use commonalities – for example, the principle of collectivism – to unify people for their economic and social good and to create a pan-Asian identity. This contrasted with perceived European ideals of the universal rights of man. The concept was advocated by Mahathir Mohamad (Prime Minister of Malaysia during 1981–2003) and by Lee Kuan Yew (Prime Minister of Singapore, 1959–1990). The popularity of the concept waned after the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when it became evident that Asia lacked any coherent regional institutional mechanism to deal with the crisis.

A number of criticisms of Asian values have been made. Amartya Sen argues these so-called Asian values cannot operate because of the overriding cultural diversity found in Asia. Lung Ying-tai, a Taiwanese social and political critic, supported by Kim Dae Jung (former President of South Korea) and Lee Teng-hui (former President of Taiwan), argues that "Asian values" is doublespeak for suppressing universal values such as freedom of speech and human rights. A common criticism of the concept of Asian values is the perceived success of many Asian democratic societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.
 
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That was apparently done out of desperation with the rise of the East Asian alliance as a superpower. But the idea that "human rights are inherently a western value and would not exist in an Asian alliance" troubles me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_values

Yes, "Asian values" is one of those "principles" that gets cited by people on both ends of the political specturm according to convenience. If you're a right-winger who likes Singapore, well, sure they do things a little differently over there, but ya gotta admit, the streets are a lot cleaner than anywhere in North America. But of course they're not gonna say that about Vietnam(at least not the unreconstructed version), even if the streets are cleaner.

And left-wingers do the same thing in reverse.
 
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