Your question doesn't seem particularly ignorant, just uninformed. But that's why we are all here at Ask Historians anyway, so no reason to apologize. It's actually better to ask and understand than just be content with being ignorant on topics.

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So to answer the part of your question focused only on Japan (I would not dream to claim knowledge of other Asian countries because I lack any real in depth study in them), the issue is largely isolationism as you posit.

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The Japanese Feudal Government (Bakufu) was extremely isolationist for 200+ years of the time period you highlight in your question. While the isolationist policy was not TOTAL it was quite restrictive and only really allowed for trade with China, Korea, Holland, the Ryukyu Kingdom (modern day Okinawa) and the Ainu (an Indigenous group in Japanese the archipelago). It is very important to me that I state that this does not mean that foreign, and for the purposes of answering your question western, ideas didn't enter Japan. There was an entire school of academics focused on the Dutch, called Rangaku (Literally Dutch studies) that was made possible by trade with the Dutch and the Chinese. Rangaku is an incredible topic that clash between Japanese and Western art, natural science and plenty of other disciplines. The isolation meant that the growth of these ideas was something of a very slow trickle rather than a flood.

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Japan didn't come out of isolation onto the wider international stage until quite late into the 19th century with the Meiji restoration and was quite far behind in the imperialism game when compared to many of the western nations at the time. One might even consider Japanese imperialism as a reaction to western imperialism. Basically after being opened to the international stage by Commodore Perry the Japanese were subjected to unequal treaties by western powers and Japan began to push against such treatment with internal movements to "Expel the Barbarians and exalt the emperor." Much effort was put into testing the theory that the only surefire way to avoid being a colony was to westernize quickly and take themselves off the proverbial buffet menu that was Asia at the time.

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All things considered Japan's ability to come onto the international stage so late and still get in on the imperialism train and fight the western powers has always sort of astounded me. You have a country so late to the game that the biggest player in the region (China) is being torn apart by both internal strife and imperialist intention, and in less than 50 years they have a modern military, colonies in their region and have a chalked up a win in a war against Russia of all people. Of course they still weren't really at the table, the mediation of the first Sino Japanese war, the results of the Treaty of Versailles and the Five Power (Washington Naval) Treaties show Japan's weak position when faced with some of the biggest imperialist nations, but Japan did an astounding job at clawing their way up to colonial possessions considering their starting point.