I think poor working conditions in the Asian textile industry is a relevant analogy.
A textile factory collapses due to inexcusabe management decisions or incompetence. The management pulled the trigger, so to speak. However, it's the abusive dynamic of the free-market that incentivised management to cut costs to sustain the business. If they had not met the price offered by the big brands, the contract would go to someone else, i.e. there's an abundance of low-cost supply.
In the Asian textile market, the manufacturers, working at thin margins, are incentivised to cut costs to unreasonable levels, because they'd lose business. The local regulators are incentivised to not regulate, because the demand would move to another jurisdiction.
My point is that sometimes, there's two sides to the guilty coin. There's the isolated incident and the general atmosphere that breeds those incidents.
I can not relate this to the topic of Asian airlines, but you might find this interesting nonetheless.