Lee Kuan Yew is heavily praised in Korea especially and the rest of Asia so I do not know how you came to generating your reply that he is a Western academic orientalist object comes from, that is certainly far from reality.
Rather, Korean academia and Korean media are generally more critical of Lee Kuan Yew compared to other countries, precisely because of the issue of dictatorship. The reason is simple: we experienced Park Chung-hee. Park Chung-hee receives overwhelming support in some parts of Korea. But fundamentally, academia does not glorify Park Chung-hee. This is because Korean political history emphasizes the flow of democracy. Korean conservatives tend to favor Park Chung-hee, while Korean progressives favor Kim Dae-jung. And since the debates between Kim Dae-jung and Lee Kuan Yew are often brought up, this leads to a more critical view of Lee Kuan Yew compared to other countries.
In Korea, Lee Kuan Yew is actually more often cited as a target of criticism. Of course, a small number of people praise him, but he is usually mentioned in the context of nostalgia for dictatorship (like Park Chung-hee in Korea), and more often than not, he is talked about as a kind of idealized image of dictatorship created by the West.
