Culture and politics in the Asia-Pacific: Asian values and human rights

The ‘Asian values’ debate The debate partly had its origins in response to the promotion of human rights and democracy by Western agencies in the context of post-Cold War international relations. Furthermore, in the 1980s a number of authoritarian regimes within Asia were facing growing domestic movements for democracy. Fearing that the political and economic structures of their states were under threat, prominent Asian leaders argued against calls for greater freedoms and political democracy, claiming that such calls endangered national security and development. To counter-attack an emerging political liberalism within Asia, such leaders claimed that the region’s economic growth and relative political stability were due to the specificity of Asian cultural values. Mahathir Mohammad, then prime minister of Malaysia, made it clear that he thought the West’s attack on Asian values was selfishly motivated by ‘fear that Asian success might lead to Asian self-assertion’ (Mahathir 1996a).