Will non-Western democracies ever become interested in promoting democracy and human rights?

[Upper Canada Tory]

The best way I can respond to this is by pointing out that promoting 'values-based' foreign policy (or at least claiming to) is a privilege of economic power.

Why can the United States impose economically harmful sanctions on countries for human rights violations and other illegal or immoral actions (eg Russian invasion of Ukraine)? Because it has the power to do so - it's the richest country in the world, it has the world's reserve currency, it controls most international trade routes, has a significant degree of control over the global financial system, banks and companies will comply with US sanctions to be able to do business in the US, etc.

A country that violates human rights or international law isn't going to be seriously hurt by Brazil or India imposing any kind of economic sanctions on them, so there's no point for these countries to do so - at least for now. These countries' foreign policy is about increasing their influence elsewhere and growing their economy so that they can one day be as powerful as the United States.

Maybe one day when either India or Brazil is the world's largest economy and has a significant degree of control over the world's financial system they will be able to sanction a country for violating human rights or international law. But if you're a poor country, what's the point of limiting your trade networks simply on 'values-based' concerns that will have little to no aggregate economic impacts? It's not, as you said, in their national interest - and these countries want to protect their national interests.