• Orientalism critique and postcolonial rethinking position East Asia as an active agent in knowledge production, challenging Western hegemony and redefining representation in global scholarship [8], [16], [2], [9].

• East Asia emerges as a locus of modernity and regional power reconfiguration, highlighting shifting global influence, regional integration, and a distinctly Asian modern order [11], [3], [19], [13], [18].

• Science and Technology Studies (STS) in East Asia; cross-disciplinary methods spanning translation, sexuality, history, and epistemic critique to rethink scholarly style and authority [4], [17], [5], [15].

• Economic development in East Asia: challenging post‑Confucian explanations, tracing the origins of the developmental state and macro-historical trajectories shaping regional policymaking [7], [14], [19], [13].