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Notes -
Losing the war and being occupied by the allies was probably the best thing that could have happened to Japan's economy, as opposed to dragging them down.
The American occupation broke the Japanese military-industrial complex and forced them into exports and free markets, funneled them large sums of capital via Korean war procurement, American market access and technology transfers, and extended Japan the American security umbrella. The Japanese economic miracle wouldn't have been possible without losing the war and getting dragged into a modern economy by force.
While they never went full communist like China, there's a good argument that India could be decades ahead of where they are now without Nehru and Gandhi fucking around with poorly implemented socialism. The over-emphasis on heavy industry, licensing and central planning, failing to implement any real land reforms, and essentially being closed off to trade prior to 1991 were practically the completely opposite conditions as to what made the four Asian tigers so successful.
While I agree that India has different issues to East Asia, having a 50 year disadvantage on Japan and a 10 year disadvantage on China in liberalization did them no favors either.
I mean Japan had already had an economic miracle to get to the point of being strong enough to even engage in their expansionary activity. The close relationship with the USA helped put the afterburners on it, but there was clearly a capability to modernize there already.
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