Why Japan and other East Asian countries are so convergent with the West?

Essentially the only countries that are on par with the west economically, technologically and culturally are the east Asian ones. Although east Asia had a completely different historical trajectory compared to the west with few an sporadic contacts with the west throughout its history, nowadays they are pretty similar and even surpass the west. By West, I mean Northwestern Europe and the English speaking world outside of Europe. It started with Japan, which quickly adopted western technologies and western ideas of industry and development by the middle of the 19th century. They even tried to imitate western style colonization and were successful at it. After the second world war, China, South Korea, and Chinese majority islands also entered the same trajectory of development. Why only those countries?