I think that is a well-put point. But, I do think that there's some truth in the belief that generally speaking, eastern cultures and specifically Asian cultures don't place as much value on the individual life as western cultures do.
Much of it has to do with the philosophies that the cultures are built upon. Individual liberty is an ideal that flows from Greek and Roman statesmen and philosophers. We really don't see a similar or as pronounced equivalent in any of the Asian cultures, which are much more feudally based.
I'm not a theologian - by any stretch - by there's also a marked difference in the three respective leading religions in both cultures - with Christianity in the west and Islam and Buddhism in the east. Christianity's foundational premise is about individual salvation through the willing acceptance of Jesus as the Christ.
Islam, on the other hand, is completely and entirely about submission to Mohamed and Allah, quite different. Also, Buddhism is more collective in nature. It's about finding "harmony" in nature, about blending in with everyone and everything around you. It's primacy is the collective balance of nature over individual achievement or existence.
In short, western civilization celebrates the individual and the inherent (some say God-given) primacy of individual life and liberty. Eastern cultures tend to do the exact opposite - the collective supersedes the individual.
Perhaps they first articulated it. Sure didn't do a very good job of hanging onto it, though!
BTW, their individual liberty was always premised on the existence of a large slave class allowing them the leisure to exercise their personal liberty and think fine thoughts.
The liberty of the America Revolution is actually based more directly on Christian theology, which states that all men are children of God and therefore in some ultimate sense equal. This is a much more solid foundation for liberty than the rather selfish desires of classical aristocrats. This idea of human equality never crossed the classical mind, or indeed that of any other human society.