Racism in Asia has been going on for centuries, but is not talked about enough. In Asia, there are many cultures. One major issue that factors into the racism is that many countries, mainly in South Asia, for example, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Vietnam, were victims of colonization. Then where they were forced to modernize into the “new world,” Then, in the Cold War political ideologies started a lot of violence and divisions in newly independent countries.
The newly independent states all aspired toward democratic systems based mainly on the Western model. East Asian countries like Korea and Japan wanted to take inspiration from capitalist and democratic ideologies from the West. Then, others took on communist ideologies. Some countries had civil wars due to wanting to be a capitalist or communist government and some are still on going today, like South Korea and North Korea.
With the violence that was caused by ideology difference, the turmoil often led Southeast Asia to be viewed as inherently unstable politically, but SouthEast asian cultures where more pushed to be more “westen” and because of that cultures that weren’t aligned where often criticized or ostracized.
Colonization in both regions also became heavily influenced by western standards and white worship, going back to how many countries were heavily influenced not only politically, but culturally. This influence left countries to become internalized artists due to the standard leaving deep rooted colorism by favorig lighter skin tones.
Then deep rooted colorism and nationalism also made a huge impact. Even today being a big issue between the regions especially since South Asians have naturally darker skin because of the higher UV.