The JAPAN Story.

Previously posted on my Facebook Page. 

JAPAN, which is around the size of California but with almost 3x larger in population at 125.8 million, is a Land of Superlatives. Aptly, this East Asian power is “The Land of the Rising Sun,” especially when we regard its economic miracle after World War II. From the ashes of its defeat in the Pacific War, GDP growth rate rose at an average of 7.1 percent from 1945 to 1956, catapulting the Shinto nation as the world’s second-largest economy in the world by 1972.

       Economy stagnated around the 1990s in what is referred to as the “Lost Decade,” but the country has since recovered. With the advent of China in the 21st century, which in fact aided Japan shake the currency crash crisis in the 1990s, Japan has assumed 3rd rank in global economy without really losing much of its economic poise.

       Japan is a great power due to several reasons. Although Tokyo has renounced its right to declare war, the country maintains Self-Defense Forces that rank as one of the world's strongest militaries. A global leader in the automotive, robotics and electronics industries, Japan has made significant contributions to science and technology. The culture is well known around the world, including its art, cuisine, music, and popular culture, which encompasses prominent comic, animation and video game industries.

       Among other bright spots, Japan ranks "very high" on the Human Development Index and a high life expectancy of 84 years though its overall population is experiencing a decline. Another startling fact about Japan, which is also known as the land the “hara-kiri” or ritual suicide and the infamous suicide forest Aokigahara in Mount Fuji, is the least depressed country on earth with a depression diagnosed rate of less than 2.5 percent. 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵

WITH a very colorful culture, Japan is a very old nation that has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC), though the first written mention of the archipelago appears in a Chinese chronicle (the Book of Han) finished in the 2nd century AD. After years under military dictators or “shoguns” and feudal lords a.k.a. “daimyo,” which was enforced by the warrior nobility called “samurai,” civil wars punctuated Japan’s history.

       The country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy, yet like China—it sustained a formidable internal well-being. The steely resolve not to trade with the West moved the United States to force Japan to open its ports in 1854. That’d then be written in history as Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s infamous “gunboat diplomacy,” which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868.

       I view that transition or the birth of the Meiji period as Japan’s slide to political darkness as it pursued a Western-modeled constitution and program of industrialization and modernization. Amidst a rise in militarism and overseas colonization, Japan invaded China in 1937 and entered World War II as an Axis power in 1941.

       After suffering defeat in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year Allied occupation, during which it adopted a new constitution. And a new life of coolness, calm, openness, and prosperity. 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵

JAPAN’s major export industries include automobiles, consumer electronics, computers, semiconductors, and iron and steel. Additionally, key industries in Japan's economy are mining, nonferrous metals, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, bioindustry, shipbuilding, aerospace, textiles, and processed foods.

       Another admirable facet of Japan points at its economic management. It has a comparatively low 3.4 percent GDP growth rate at this point, a lot lower than India’s global high of 6.5 percent to 7 percent, but Japan apparently runs its economy better. Its unemployment rate is at 2+ percent, regardless of Covid-19 pandemic, compared with India’s 7.9 percent jobless rate.

       As expected, Japan’s top trading partner is China, surpassing trade with the United States. Tokyo’s economy is increasingly dependent on Beijing, which is now the country's largest export destination. That’d be considering that after China defeated Japan in the WW2, relations have been tense because of the Korean War and the Cold War. Yet trade has expanded greatly in the 21st century.

       True to the Japanese, they healed fast from wounds of war to embrace peaceful demeanor. And the Chinese are lovin’ it as well. Chinese tourists have been the biggest group visiting Japan in recent years. In 2018, some 8.4 million Chinese tourists visited Japan and spent a whopping $13 billion, accounting for nearly 34 percent of all spending by foreign visitors. Today over 2.7 million foreign residents are estimated to be in Japan. Of this, Chinese nationals account for the largest group, with close to 800,000. 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵

WHAT about Japan’s relations with the United States? Tokyo remains as a top Washington political ally in Asia, irrelevant of China. In fact, Japan hosts the 3rd largest concentration of American troops overseas, after South Korea and Germany. Despite these, Japan hasn’t really bought into or rode with America’s open derision of China.

       Tokyo refused to join Washington’s trade war with Beijing in Donald Trump’s years. To accentuate the stance, just two weeks after the Nov 2020 U.S. presidential election, Japan joined the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Meantime, Japan has also not followed America’s lead against China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is said to be seeking to cooperate with the project.

       Despite all these, the U.S. stays as Japan’s #2 top trading partner. U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Japan was $131.8 billion in 2019, a 16.4 percent increase from 2018. U.S. direct investment in Japan is led by finance and insurance, manufacturing, and wholesale trade. Japan's FDI in the United States was $619.3 billion in 2019, up 25.4 percent from 2018. That’d be #1 FDI country in America, to date. Chinese FDIs in the U.S. is way below the Top 10.

       Meanwhile, the Japanese, 67 percent, favorably view America as their closest ally. A 2021 Gallup poll showed that 84 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Japan as well. In fact, when I stayed in Japan in the 1990s, I was amazed at how the Japanese extremely enjoy American rock `n roll. The country is a top 3 market for U.S. music. 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵

Photo credits: Papaya Global. The Independent. Wikipedia.