Asian values

Asian values, set of values promoted since the late 20th century by some Asian political leaders and intellectuals as a conscious alternative to Western political values such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism. Advocates of Asian values typically claimed that the rapid development of many East Asian economies in the post-World War II period was due to the shared culture of their societies, especially those of Confucian heritage. They also asserted that Western political values were unsuited to East Asia because they fostered excessive individualism and legalism, which threatened to undermine the social order and destroy economic dynamism. Among Asian values that were frequently cited were discipline, hard work, frugality, educational achievement, balancing individual and societal needs, and deference to authority; many of these values are championed during AAPI  (Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) Heritage Month, which takes place each May in the United States. Critics of Asian values have disputed their role in economic growth and argued that they were being used to protect the interests of East Asia’s authoritarian elites.

Asian values and modernity

Claims about the benefits of Asian values garnered particular attention in the early 1990s, when they were articulated by prominent political figures such as former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. Such claims conflicted with contemporary Western assertions that the collapse of European communism and the success of China’s market socialism had demonstrated the superiority of human rights, democracy, and capitalism over competing forms of organizing society.

The Asian values debate was also internal to Asian societies. At a time of rapid economic and social change in East Asia, growing individualism and democratization and human rights movements challenged established socioeconomic orders and authoritarian regimes. The debate was an element within a larger struggle over competing visions of modernity and of how Asian societies should be organized.

Proponents of Asian values made several related claims. They asserted that Asian values were responsible for the region’s significant economic growth; that economic development must be prioritized in societies that are climbing out of poverty; and, more generally, that civil and political rights should be subordinate to economic and social rights. In addition, because the state embodies the collective identity and interests of its citizens, its needs should take precedence over the rights of the individual. Accordingly, Asian-values proponents were strong defenders of state sovereignty, including the right to noninterference by outsiders. Those ideas were expressed in the 1993 Bangkok Declaration on human rights, which was signed by many Asian governments but criticized by Asian human rights organizations.

Criticism of Asian values

Critics of Asian values have dismissed claims on their behalf as attempts to shore up authoritarian and illiberal rule against domestic and external opponents and to obscure the weaknesses of the Asian economic development model. The Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 appeared to vindicate some of their arguments. Some critics have charged that the discourse of Asian values trades on simplistic stereotypes of Asian cultures and in that respect is similar to the Orientalism that had long characterized Western scholarship on Asian and Arabic societies. Others pointed to the apparent contradiction between the antiliberalism espoused by proponents of Asian values and their promotion of market-oriented development, which has challenged and disrupted the established social order. Finally, feminist theorists viewed the Asian-values discourse as an attempt to legitimate gender, class, ethnic, and racial hierarchies embedded in Asian cultures, in the Asian development model, and in wider capitalist social relations.

The Asian values debate is relevant to arguments in political theory over whether commitments to global justice and equality can be grounded in human rights. Taking issue with the Western assumption that liberal political structures are the starting point for advancing human well-being, communitarians such as Charles Taylor have reflected on Asian cultural experiences to examine the potential and challenges of establishing a more inclusive, unforced, but robust global consensus on human rights. A growing literature, including that associated with Confucian communitarianism and reformist Islam, has examined whether particular values and institutions in Asian societies are consistent with human rights. Daniel A. Bell, a Canadian philosopher specializing in Confucian thought, argued that many “values in Asia,” as opposed to “Asian values,” can both enrich global human rights theory and practice and be deployed to improve the dignity and well-being of contemporary Asians.