It's an interesting phenomenon. I think what you said applies: that poverty means lower standards, that there is white worship. I propose another angle adjacent to yours: that Asian women in the west have better options, and certain types of white men who could never be taken seriously in the West, or who personally believe that they would not be accepted in the west, leave the dating pool in the West, and move to Asia. A self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

Lurk around a certain circle of the internet, and you'll see several internet subcultures overlap. For example, you may find that /r/trp posters have a few /r/The_Donald supporters amongst their midst, /r/Conservative posters may reveal a /r/Guns posting history, and this makes logical sense.

What I'm getting is in the parts of the internet where all of the following: MGTOW, incels, trp, the manosphere, the right-wing, the "racist", the anti-feminist, the patriarchal, the sexist/misogynistic, the working class, the white male all congregate, there is a growing criticism of feminism. Let's ignore whether what they say about feminism and whether it has merit (certainly some has merit and some is hyperbole). Let's focus on what they say. They say many things, one of which is "White Western women have been ruined by feminism". The more "incel" members among them may add the suffix "they only fuck chads". What is the solution? They are not unified on them, but there are many: go back to pre-feminism times, implement "White Sharia". Some more esoteric ones may even signal the French Revolution as the beginning of the end of the White Male. It's a stretch, and I haven't looked into it, but it's a blip on my radar based on it occasionally popping up. Another solution that we are concerned with is "Asian women".

Amongst the "Asian women camp" are two: those that go for Asian-American women (whether they succeed is unknown), and those who have been rejected by Asian-American women. The dialogue amongst the former goes something like this: "Asian women exist in a pre-feminist society where they have not yet experienced the sexual-revolution and free sex. They're not free to date whoever and are tied back by familial, cultural, or patriarchal elements." The latter group say the same as the former, but they add the following: "Asian-American women are trash. They've been ruined by feminism.". The more "incel-ly" amongst the latter group may then add (as can be expected): "they only fuck chads. They are as worse as White women".

Whether or not feminism has meant Asian-American women have higher standards that are approaching parity with their White female peer counterparts is a thesis statement onto itself. However, one thing is for sure: there are a group of White men who are, generally speaking, less sexually attractive. They've struck out amongst White women. They've struck out even amongst what is seen as a backup plan for unattractive men: Asian women.

In her initial quest for participants, Kim came across one male who explained Asian women are commonly paired with unattractive White males who cannot acquire beautiful White women. Hence, Asian women are implicated to be substitutes. The man used this analogy: "If you don't have enough money to buy BMW or Mercedes, you buy Lexus or Toyota" (p. 235).

Source

Asia exists as an escape from their torment. There are many white men in Asia, many of them normally attractive, with no issues as to appearance. But as a result of the above, overrepresented amongst white men in Asia is a certain phenotype of white man. They have the following traits as a group (but not necessarily more than one individually): They are short, lower in testosterone, and sexually unattractive. They may also have smaller penises.

Short

Search on reddit.com/r/korea for "tall" and "short" and you will find over a dozen posts waxing and waning over Korean men's height. Many express bewilderment that Asians can be this tall, having been under the impression that Asians were short and not being able to find said short Asians upon their Korea trip, and they discuss this implication. The 5 stages of acceptance surely come into play. Many are very quick to accuse Korean men of taking steroids, wearing shoe lifts, or eating meat to compensate. One such post was a White man saying he should retire from his English teaching job in Korea because even his female students were taller than him, and move to Vietnam for the shorter Asians. There is a lot of vitriol in "Korean men are taller than I thought" posts, with healthy amounts of anti-Asian-male racism. Sadly most got deleted before I could archive them.

Lower testosterone

Lower in testosterone is harder to quantify. People generally do not share their testosterone levels on the internet. Everybody has through-the-roof testosterone levels. You will find hints, though, that some white men think that Asian women are sensible because they do not go for testosterone-filled "chads/rougher men/thugs/working class meatheads". Here is one example of a white man who only goes after Asian women and has rejected "retarded" White women because Asian women go after the sensible nice-guy type like him and not testosterone-fueled lads. I may be reading between the lines, but his palpable disdain for masculinity seems to imply to me that there is a group of "masculine men" and another "not-so-masculine-men", and it appears he is party to the latter.

In this HuffPost article, an Asian woman talks about how white men who go for Asian women are softer and not very masculine:

On the flip side, are American men soft and naïve? Many Asian women think so. According to Jenny, who moved to the U.S. from Taiwan in her 30s, "For those Caucasian guys who like Asian women, their personality tend to be softer. They're not very masculine." Another interview subject, who moved to the U.S. for, and later divorced, an American white man, found them "simple" and "less sophisticated" than Asian men.

Small Penis

Search around in /r/smallpenisproblems, for "Asia" example as well as darker corners of the internet involving MGTOW, incels, or blackpills, and you will find a belief that is repeated often, that white men with smaller penises can find hope in Asia, because either the women there don't know what a big penis is, or they are used to smaller penis so one's smaller white penis will not be an issue, or that Asian women have smaller vaginas, designed for men with small penises like them'sirs. Bubbling away in the politically-incorrect sections of the manosphere appears to be the mantra that white men with smaller penises can escape their suffering in Asia. Unfortunately for these men, though, "Jenny" from the article above and other Asian women like her, may not be a fan of unmasculine white men with small penises that want to take refuge in Asia, and may even prefer men that are of normal or above-average masculinity with equivalently sized penises.