I didn't seem to get the impression that this was a rant based on his superiority, nor did I get the feeling this person doesn't understand the culture. I actually got this feeling that he does understand the differences in culture and the purpose of the blog is to make a social commentary about how this behavior stifles innovation and in most cases increase cost.

You're right, some countries value 'communal harmony', but that is not what this is about. It's not about having to meet 6 different people to get a sign-off because they have important input and will be directly involved with the product, it's about having to deal with one person who could easily make most of the decisions herself and having her take managers from everywhere because she just doesn't want to be responsible for any future disagreements.

This wasn't a brainstorming session. The manager's decision costed the time of 16 extra people and probably made the meeting go for a lot longer than needed, and at the end, instead of responding to the last question, they pass the torch to legal. To me this doesn't seem like avoiding responsibility, to me it's being irresponsible (at least towards other people's time, not even taking into account other people's sanity).