Originally Posted by abaya

As a social scientist, I can say that the whole West-East distinction lost its literal descriptive value a while ago. I don't think it's very helpful in distinguishing socioeconomic lines, since the so-called "East" (mentioned above) is pretty heterogeneous and not one mass of similar countries.
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West vs. East in terms of occidental vs. oriental ideology/philosophy/culture is still relevant, however. In that sense, I think the East is mostly composed of China, Japan, and Southeast Asia.