Modern Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are neither culturally nor institutionally distinct enough from the west to call them anything other than western countries

I keep hearing comparisons between these countries and the west which I find weird because these countries are western in everything except geography. The East Asian civilizations that existed prior to the 1800s died a slow and painful death between the Opium Wars and the Occupation of Japan. Modern Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan owe more culturally and institutionally to Europe and America than they do the Tokugawa Shogunate, Joseon, or the Great Qing and that’s a fact.