In all fairness, the cast includes people who are racially Malaysian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, etc., so instead of using “Asian” as a euphemism for “Pakistani” like they do in the UK, smearing all other Asians, in this case, especially because it is after a book called Crazy Rich Asians, it is a break even.
Doing a complete race change of a cast can sometimes work, and sometimes fail horribly, for example Kurosawa’s Ran, after Shakespeare’s King Lear; and the patronizing The Wiz, after the Wizard of Oz.