This record of success was frequently attributed by less
observant commentators to the superiority of ‘Asian values’ over
those of the West, overlooking the fact that the concept of ‘Asian
values’ would have to embrace Confucian values, Buddhist values,
Hindu values, Muslim values, Shinto values, Christian values,
animist values and presumably Communist values, among others:
‘if there is anything we can speak of as a general truth about Asia,’
Inoue Tatsuo observes, ‘it would be its religious and cultural
diversity … much greater than that of the West’.