After gaining support from the United States and achieving domestic economic reform, Japan's economy was able to soar from the 1950s to the 1970s. Furthermore, Japan also completed its process toward industrialization and became the first developed nation in East Asia.
From the 1960s to the 1980s, Japan achieved one of the highest economic growth rates in the world. This growth was led by: High rates of investment in productive plant and equipment. The application of efficient industrial techniques.
Japan is an exporting giant
Japan's economy depends mainly on exports which count for more than $640 billion. Cars' export amount to nearly $100 billion, while vehicles' spare parts amount to $30 billion.
Due to increased efficiency and corporations' ability to keep up with changes in the international trading stage, Japan was able to provide goods that were in the most demand, increasing exports and thus real economic growth.
China makes up 18.45% of the total global economy. The top two richest countries in the world combined harbor 42.38% of the world's economy. The third richest country in the world by GDP is Japan at $4.937 trillion in GDP and a $39,285.2 GDP per capita.
By the late 1980s, the Japanese economy experienced an asset price bubble of a massive scale. The bubble was caused by the excessive loan growth quotas dictated on the banks by Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan, through a policy mechanism known as the "window guidance".
From 1991 through 2001, Japan experienced a period of economic stagnation and price deflation known as "Japan's Lost Decade." While the Japanese economy outgrew this period, it did so at a much slower pace than other industrialized nations.
Japan has a long, complex history and a rich culture. The Japanese islands have been inhabited for over 30,000 years, and the Japanese nation and people trace their origins back about 2,000 years to the area around present-day Kyoto.
Japan's economic growth after the 1940s was based on unprecedented expansion of industrial production and the development of an enormous domestic market, as well as on an aggressive export trade policy.
Clear-speak: The average Japanese is actually about 40% richer than the average American. So Japan clearly beats America on the absolute amount of wealth owned by the average household.
Seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industries, Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931. By 1937 Japan controlled large sections of China, and war crimes against the Chinese became commonplace.
Weaknesses: A decline in birth rate and hike in aging population leads to economic debt. Japan has far too many people for its little island. Most populations congregate in major cities, like Tokyo, because much of the island is inhabitable.
It is conventionally regarded that the shogunate imposed and enforced the sakoku policy in order to remove the colonial and religious influence of primarily Spain and Portugal, which were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of the shogunate and to peace in the archipelago.
Thus, Japanese exports collapsed because both the export of consumer durables to the advanced markets and the export of industrial supplies and capital goods to emerging Asia fell sharply, as a consequence of the contraction of private consumption and the softening of investment spending in the US and Europe.
It had to rearrange its production system and other economic institutions to cope with globalization to reduce its reliance on external demand. Japan's population structure was shifting and becoming increasingly elderly. Aging meant slower growth of the labor force.
In Japan, the term Lost Generation refers to those who had the bad luck to graduate during the “employment ice age” of the 1990s and 2000s—after the collapse of the 1980s asset-price bubble—when companies sharply curtailed their annual recruitment of permanent employees.
China's economy is set to rebound this year as mobility and activity pick up after the lifting of pandemic restrictions, providing a boost to the global economy.
How did Koreans react to Japanese rule? They resisted with a widespread nonviolence movement. How did Filipino rebels get involved in Spanish-American War? They supported the United States, hoping for independence.
Japan's isolation came to an end in 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy, commanding a squadron of two steam ships and two sailing vessels, sailed into Tokyo harbor. He sought to force Japan to end their isolation and open their ports to trade with U.S merchant ships.
A positive effect of this enforced isolation was independence, peace and prosperity during the Shogunate. Japan became self reliant using its limited natural resources in a sustainable way.
Japan faces both cyclical and structural challenges as it begins the new year. Its cyclical challenges are global supply chain bottlenecks and labour market frictions, which continue to put downward pressure on its economy as it strives to recover from the worldwide recession.
Instead, Japan received most of its oil from the United States and rubber from British Malaya, the very two Western nations trying to restrict Japan's expansion.
Japan believed it had a sovereign right to rule, to become the “Light of Greater East Asia” and ultimately the “Light of the World”. The Japanese felt that by conceding ground their country would be humiliating itself in front of the world.
According to Rummel, in China alone, from 1937 to 1945, approximately 3.9 million Chinese were killed, mostly civilians, as a direct result of the Japanese operations and a total of 10.2 million Chinese were killed in the course of the war.