It's not a trend. I wondered if their opinion was more about America, or a very different country, or a topic like the death penalty. It's a common conversational pattern with which to highlight the core views of the speaker and identify if those views are tied to the subject (america) or the topic (death penalty.) Japan is generally seen as superior on many topics, but recently was in the news for ruling on an execution, hence was the example I raised.

They replied that they think Japan is the same, are thus logically consistent, and I was satisfied.

If they had said Japan IS civilized, even though they too have execution, that would be logically inconsistent and problematic.