That's an interesting thought about Hong Kong..hadn't really thought about it that way and now that you mention it that does make sense. You're right about Tokyo for sure.
As for distance I was more or less comparing the distance between each location to the other location not really the size of the country where the parks were built. I checked the distance before posting and it's about a 2 hour flight between Shanghai and Hong Kong. It's around a 4 hour flight from Toyko
Disneyland to Hong Kong Disneyland if you take a non-stop flight or if you go from Toyko to Shanghai it's around a 2 hours and 40 minutes flight if you take a non-stop flight.
However, it's a 5 1/2 hour flight from DLR to WDW therefore meaning that all three of the above listed destinations are actually closer to each other in distance than DLR and WDW. Also if you consider taking a train between Hong Kong and Shanghai it's less time than traveling by car between DLR and WDW.
Demographics of each location plays a very large role in the location as rteez helped explain to me and maybe citizens of each area are less likely to travel outside that area that they are in (speculation cuz I really have no idea travel statistics of that region).
I just see it as Disney was more or less looking to expand unnecessarily at the time (IMO) to Shanghai (though not suprising at all where more more more locations becomes the mantra) when they could have injected that money into expanding/upgrading/improving their already existing parks both domestically and internationally which would have allowed a greater control over the finances with the everchanging economy.
