Why Is Japan So Rich?

Why is Japan so Rich? How did the Land of the Rising Sun become one of the wealthiest countries in the world? This video will start from Japan's isolation to the Meiji Restoration all the way to the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1990s.

Credits
- Research: Mrs Scope
- Audio: Seb. Soto
- Writing and Voice Over: Avery from History Scope

Social Media

Sources
R. H. P. Mason, J. G. Caiger (1997) A History of Japan. Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo
C. Totman (2000) A History of Japan. Blackwell Publishing, Malden

[bartleyhoran]

You wouldn't believe you're Dutch with that pour. Absolutely shocking. 12:31

[MasayaShida]

Japan was the first country willing to invest and build us a bridge in Cambodia, even as our country had yet to stabilize after fall of communism. They are helping us build sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. They are a great country.

[helloiamenergyman]

Fun fact: according to my dad who is part of the japanese community here in Brazil, some of the japanese immigrants who visited japan post ww2 thought that japan won the war, because they couldn't believe that a country that had just lost a war could be so prosperous.

[oys]

As a Japanese hardware engineer, I cannot help but mention the US forced the use of foreign semiconductors for Japanese electronics in 1986 to late 90s, which caused a serious impact on the japanese electronic industry. This forced us engineers to use MPUs from Motorola, Intel, and Texas Instruments instead of Hitachi, Sharp, and Toshiba. Our situation was quite bad, so my colleague went to Korea to "help" Samsung, who paid well to the Japanese.

[Nielson]

Western media doesn’t understand East Asia very much. Japan has developed to its peak, almost everything is so advanced than the US and Europe…therefore it has to slow down, but still one of the richest and most developed countries country in the world, its economy never collapsed or bankrupted, western media just exaggerated. So….China now might heading to Japan’s path, because China has been progressing too much too fast, and now has to slow down, but wont be collapse either.

[vwitooh]

Behind the success of the Meiji Restoration was the 250-year peaceful Edo period. During this period, small schools called terakoya (寺子屋) were born all over Japan so that children of farmers other than samurai could study. As a result, Japan's literacy rate has reached an astonishing rate. I think that was the foundation for learning overseas technology.

[Hime]

Japan has been apologizing to Korea for the comfort women, but Korean soldiers did so much worse; Korean soldiers raped so many women and girls in Vietnam but Korea has never apologized nor even talked about the consequences of the rape, Lai Dai Han: 라이따이한), a Vietnamese term for a racially mixed person born to a South Korean father and a Vietnamese mother, specifically during the Vietnam War, by getting raped. Korean soldiers run away and never took the responsibility of the half children. The children were discriminated in Vietnam and have never received any compensation. But Korea keeps blaming Japan for comfort women but never apologized to Vietnamese women for raping and not taking care of their children. What a terrible country.

[YuuSHiiiN]

One of the reasons for Japan's economic stagnation that you forgot to mention was the Plaza Accords in the 1980s that the US essentially blackmailed Japan to sign. Japan had a thriving semiconductor industry at the time and there was the potential to overtake the US as the #! economy in the 80s. Obviously, that didn't sit well with US high tech companies, and they basically planted false evidence of Japan supposedly stealing their patents, hence the Plaza Accords was signed and Japan took a HUGE hit towards their high tech manufacturing which never truly recovered.

[jackyn]

I must demand a revision of your movie the Japanese policy of annexation of Korea. Japan built infrastructure and provided education in Korea as part of Japan, just as it did in Taiwan. There was never any massacre. I believe this from the memory of my mother, who spent her childhood in Korea. The current resentment in South Korea towards Japan is nothing more than national propaganda. Please learn correct history.

[chillout]

Japan is for us tunisians without a visa and also they invested in my country so much and helped us i think our good relations because we helped the before and look how they give back amazing country and people

[momo-cchi]

3:25 You are LITERALLY the first person that'd EVER explained to me WHY everybody and they mama wanted Japan to open up and start trading with them. Every other "educational channel" would just gloss over that topic smh. 😅

[-og]

Japan was not a poor country 200 years ago. Edo was one of the biggest city in the world with such a rich culture.

[ashleyw]

Japanese colonial was fundamentally different from the colonies of other countries.0:33　18:34
The colonies increased life expectancy and literacy rates, built schools, railroads, power plants, and airports, opened up the slave class, and treated them like the Japanese in terms of pay.
There are also records of teaching them agricultural techniques, increasing rice yields, and buying rice at a fair price.I don't know about natural rubber or anything like that, so if anyone knows, comment. If possible, please include evidence.

When there were deaths from starvation in the colonies, there were also deaths from starvation in Japan, and the massacre of Comfort Women is doubtful if you check the records created by the U.S. military at the time to process the postwar period.
When there was conscript labor, the Japanese had conscript labor as well.

There is no other country like that. Very interesting.
What we have to be careful about is that there are people who have been educated that Japan is a terrible country without any evidence.

[stavroshadjiyiannis]

There are three main reasons why Japan has stagnated during the past three decades. First, many trade restrictions have been imposed on them by the US and the EU, while at the same time these restrictions have been removed for China. Second, with the plaza accord, Japan was forced to revalue the yen quite substantially. Thirdly, the lack of cheap immigrant labour has certainly taken its toll.

[noby]

I wanted a reference to national character.
While Western countries are basically heavily individualistic, Japan tends to value the group more than most Asian countries.
I think this is one of the factors that have greatly influenced Japan's development today.
Also, in education, there has been a system similar to private-level schools called (terakoya) since the Edo period, and the literacy rate at that time was one of the highest in the world, which is probably another reason for the rapid development of the country.
I need to study a little more.
Nevertheless, it was very interesting to see this way of looking at Japan's history from overseas.

[cxyknxw]

As a Korean, I learn briefly about Japanese history in class. In school, we learned that the reason for Japan's success in modernization was the development of urbanization and commerce. I don't remember the exact terminology, but the shogun took the daimyo's family hostage and made them visit Tokyo regularly, and commerce developed along the daimyo's route to Tokyo. It also teaches that residential areas were determined based on social status, so the upper class lived in the castle and merchants flocked there, leading to concentrated urbanization.

[walid]

I can solve that mystery for you about why Japan stalled in the last 30 years. You probably know this, but it's a taboo subject: the Plaza accord. The US was afarid of the rise of Japan, so it withheld some tech crucial to its development. The US gave licensing for some tech to Taiwan and South Korea only. Crushing Japanese industry. A well known story. The US is trying to repeat the same with China. But it's not working.

[crimsonnight]

The thing I really like about this channel is how economics, history and politics are explained very simply. Definitely one of the best history channels out there.

[Thunderbolt]

今の日本はまず人口減少の問題を解消しなければならない
1.2億人の人口を維持できるように

[raeldor]

The efficient policy decisions around education and industrialization after the war is just mind blowing to me. Having spent a lot of time in Japan I can say, even though it's not a perfect country, the spirit of co-operation here is very strong. In the US it often feels like political parties are fighting each other for the sake of it and not working together for the good of the country.