exports of ships, textiles, cars and electronic goods
during the 1960s. The effects of this expansion
percolated far beyond the Japanese islands – to
Australia, where the ore was mined to provide
Japan with steel, to the Middle East, which sup-
plied much of its oil, to south-east Asia, especially
Indonesia and Malaya from which it imported oil
and raw materials. The rest of the world took note
and tried to gain access to Japan’s market for
industrial goods. The Japanese government lifted
restrictions and made genuine efforts in the 1980s
to open the home market more freely, to head off
international hostility, especially from America.
But the bureaucracy and business have used
administrative obstacles to make it as difficult as
possible for foreign goods to penetrate the
Japanese market. Japanese business had the advan-
tage of the protected home market as a base from
which to expand, protection in the end makes
home industry less efficient.
Toyota and Nissan began making cars before
the war, copying British and American designs. In
1950 Japanese motor manufacturers produced
less than 2,000 cars. To take on the American
giants, Ford and Chrysler, or the British Austin
and Morris seemed a futile ambition. Initially they
made agreements with Western car manufacturers
to use their designs and technology, and they
studied American factories. In 1970 Japan pro-
duced 5 million cars, providing Western cus-
tomers with what they wanted at a lower price
than similar Western cars. By the 1990s, to over-
come foreign resentment and pre-empt the exclu-
sion of Japanese exports, the Japanese electronic
firm Sony and the Japanese car giants had set up
factories in the US and Europe. In industry after
industry, the Japanese improved technically on
the Western product, whether cameras or
machine tools. Then, exploiting heavy invest-
ment, the hard work of a skilled labour force, the
economies that come from large-scale produc-
tion, a more or less closed home market and a
worldwide export market, they raised productiv-
ity sharply so that better goods could be pro-
duced more cheaply. There is a constant battle for
improvement, for keeping ahead in research,
design and methods of production. The new gen-
eration of computers in the coming information
age is the latest industry to be targeted by Japan
to become a world-beater. There will be few
industries of the twenty-first century in which the
Japanese will not excel; one of these, in the 1990s
still dominated by the US, is the aircraft industry.
After a phenomenal growth rate in the GNP of
10 per cent a year in the 1960s, annual growth
in Japan slowed in the 1970s and 1980s to an
average nearer 6 per cent, but that had the effect
of nearly doubling output in a decade. The highly
praised Japanese model ran out of steam and
weaknesses of the financial protected industries
became apparent. The stagnation of the economy
during the last decade of the twentieth century is
in stark contrast to earlier spectacular growth.
Japan is governed by career politicians, by
leaders of factions and local ‘favourite sons’
returned to the Diet. Allegiance is less to mass
parties, more to individuals. Politicians play a con-
siderable role in the communities that elect them,
attending hundreds of events, including wed-
dings, funerals and festive occasions, at which
they are expected to distribute largesse. Their
resulting need for money breeds corruption. They
do favours for their supporters, using their influ-
ence as members of the Diet with ministries. In
return they receive cash donations. For example,
the country farmers enjoying farm subsidies
support the LDP. The opposition support comes
from the newer urban areas, which are discrimi-
nated against in that each of their electoral dis-
tricts contains a much larger number of voters
than those in the countryside. This suits the LDP.
When getting to Tokyo, young LDP politicians
have to join one of the factions; thereafter they
will gradually rise in the hierarchy of national
politics, increasingly able to bestow favours.650 TWO FACES OF ASIA: AFTER 1949
Japan, 1950–2000
Population GDP per head
(millions) (US$)1950 83.0 200 (in 1955)
1978 115.2 7,300
1987 122.1 15,800
1990 124.0 27,000
2000 127.1 38,160