Transcript of How Japan Became a SUPERPOWER? | World's Greatest Comeback | Dhruv Rathee

Japan is considered one of the most developed countries in the world today. Its clean roads, bullet trains, technological advancements, robots, disciplines, are all of the level that everyone praises today. But can you imagine, just 80 years ago, in this very Japan, people were starving. And in the newspapers, government experts were teaching people how they could eat the wood and mouse as food. People were selling their clothes, watches and jewellery for food.

In the Second World War, 66 big cities of Japan were burned to ashes. 90 lakh people did not even have a home. After defeating Japan, America took over the entire country. And the situation was so bad that at that time, American General Douglas MacArthur announced to the world Japan had now become a fourth-rate nation. But then, only 23 years later, Japan became the third largest economy in the world.

This journey from the ashes to the top economy of the world is considered the biggest comeback in modern history for any country. And it is called the Japanese miracle. Hello, to understand this, we will have to go back in time, to the year 1945. In the Second World War, Japan's 1 4th National Wealth was destroyed. 65% of the houses in Tokyo were burnt to ashes. 57% in Osaka. 89% in Nagoya. This was the situation in all major cities.

And then came the nuclear bombs. America dropped the first one on Hiroshima. And then on Nagasaki after 3 days. Only these two bombs caused more than 2 lakh people But the biggest disaster was Japan's economic destruction. Industrial production fell to only 20% at the peak of the Second World War. The government had only three days left of rice in Tokyo. And the finance minister himself said that about one crore people could die from hunger.

The situation was that the government experts in the newspapers were teaching people how to eat rice, peanut shells and wood. to eat. For protein, silkworms, rats and snakes were being given advice. The whole country was alive on the black market, where rice was selling 30 times more expensive than the official price. It was called the bamboo shoot existence at that time, because just like the layers of bamboo fall one by one, people were selling their life layers one by one just to eat.

All decisions were made by an American general, Douglas MacArthur, who was called the Japanese People called him Blue-Eyed Shogun. Emperor Hirohito, who was considered a god in Japan a few days ago, when he met MacArthur, he was so down that he was shaking his hands. This was the moment when the pride of this country was completely broken. The most shocking thing was that the cost of this occupation was also being paid by Japan.

On one hand, people were starving and on the other hand, only 1 third of the country's budget was going to the American forces in the name of ending the war. America's plan was simple. To weaken Japan so much that it would never be in danger again. So in 1947, he introduced a new constitution on Japan. In Article 9, it was written that Japan would always abandon its right to fight and would never have any kind of army.

But then came March 1947 With the American Soviet Union They were entangled in a Cold War. They readied their armies to fight what would prove to be one of the most abstract conflicts in history. The Cold War. Look at the map once. Look at the location of Japan. On one side was the Soviet Union, which was already Communist. And on the other side was China, where the Communist army was winning. Now America was afraid that if Japan also became Communist, then the whole of Asia would be taken by them.

America's top strategist, George Cannon, also published a report in 1948. that MacArthur's policies and the ruined economy made Japan vulnerable to communism from the inside. America could not take this risk. So it changed its policy overnight. On 9th October 1948, President Harry Truman approved a document called NSC 13-2. It stated that America's primary objective in Japan would be its economic recovery.

But the problem was that Japan's economy was on two sides. One was government subsidies and the other was American aid. Apart from this, there was another big problem, the cost, which had reached 195% in 1947. Can you imagine such inflation? So for this, in 1949, America brings a new policy called the Dodge Line. In this, all subsidies are stopped and government loans are also suspended. In April 1949, a single exchange rate of the currency was also fixed.

$1 equals to 360 yen It was deliberately kept a little more so that Japanese exports would remain cheap in the world's markets And after a few years, it stopped being expensive But it also caused a loss Companies started to lay off Now people neither had a job nor money If there was no money, there was no demand And if there was no demand, there was no production The entire economy of Japan stopped And in the beginning of 1950, the Japanese economy stopped was heading towards depression.

Japan needed demand from somewhere. And then, suddenly, this demand came. And the whole story changed. Where did this demand come from? Before you know this, you need to understand that fortune favors the brave. Japan's factories, its engineers, its workers, were ready before the time came. And if that day, luck would have been with another country instead of Japan, then we wouldn't have seen this result.

And, this rule hasn't changed even today. We are also facing a similar situation, which is called AI Revolution. A technology that has become the most important technology of our generation. The difference is that most people are not taking advantage of it. AI asks only a few questions and they think it's done. But the real power of AI is so great that it's hard to imagine. With the help of AI, you can create a complete working website without even writing a single line.

You can create presentations and reports. You can create such amazing animations with AI. You can create complete songs. And I will teach you all these things in my 3 hour Live AI Masterclass. These are the most important AI tools. There is no need for a technical background to join this. More than 1.5 lakh people have attended it so far. And more than 80% of those who attended it said that they would learn more than they expected.

The next masterclass is going to be on Sunday, September 6th. And the cost is still as much as two movie tickets. If you can't join live, the recording is also available for 7 days. So don't delay joining. The link below is in the description. Or you can scan this QR code. Now let's get back to our topic and understand on which occasion North Korea's army attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950 and the Korean War began.

North Koreans launched a full-scale, well-prepared drive on the capital of the South, Seoul. America also joined the war in support of South Korea. We are united in detesting communist slavery. We know that the cost of freedom is high, but we are determined to preserve our freedom no matter what the cost. Now America needed trucks, uniforms, machine parts, weapons, and Japan was the closest country to Korea.

At this point, America started buying war supplies from Japan on a large scale. From June 1950 to the end of 1953, about $2.3 billion was bought. This number was so large that from 1945 to 1951, Japan received more financial aid than America. And this money proved to be a lifeline for Japan. The Japanese economy was back on track. The production of factories began. Jobs came and people started getting money.

In just two years, industrial production increased by 70%. And exports increased by more than 2.5 times. The stock market also calmed down by more than 80% by December 1951. The trucks that America bought for the war, revived the automobile industry of Japan. Toyota, which was about to close down and was taking out the workers from their jobs, was suddenly ordered by America to make more than 4,600 trucks.

And the company was re-opened. The president of Toyota later said that he was feeling two things at the same time. Joy for his company and guilt that he was happy at the war of another country. And this was actually true for the whole country of Japan. Millions of people were dying in neighboring Korea And Japan's factories were making profits by making trucks and bombs for that war The governor of Bank of Japan called it Divine Aid And along with Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, many leaders also called it a gift of the Gods Gifts given to God The country whose economy was destroyed by a war, was revived by another war On 8th September 1951, Japan signed peace treaty with most of the countries that fought against it in World War II.

Under which, in 1952, the American occupation of Japan was ended. Before the San Francisco Peace Conference comes Premier Shigeru Yoshida. Accepting the treaty terms, he pledges that Japan is a new nation dedicated to peace, democracy and freedom. At that time, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed this treaty. He believed that this treaty would not fully restore Japan's sovereignty.

The treaty was a guarantee that some islands of Japan would still be in the control of America, and some occupation forces could still live in Japan. Later in 1952, India signed a separate treaty with Japan. Now, the help of the Korean War and America did kickstart Japan's economy. But no government aid made Japan a superpower. It was made a superpower by the passion, hard work and stubbornness of the people there, who refused to bow down to the system and the circumstances.

After the bomb dropped in Hiroshima, 15 out of 49 citizen schools in the city were completely destroyed. Only one out of 30 middle schools was left and seven colleges were destroyed. But even then, the education of the children did not stop. in May 1946 in a burning school field under the open sky the first class was set next month another In the burnt down building of the former school, three teachers started teaching 37 children.

There was no bench, no blackboard, no books. A defeated country was sitting in a ruins and teaching its children from a new start. The same inspirational story is of the villages. Before the war, about 70% of Japan's farmers would not own their land, but someone else's. And 50-70% of the crops were given to the landlord. In 1946, the Land Reform Law was introduced. The law stipulated that the government would buy land from the landlord, and sell it to the farmers who worked hard on it.

But can you guess who implemented it? The farmers themselves. More than 11,000 village land commissions were formed in the country. The farmers of the villages themselves would select them. And these committees decided which land belonged to whom. This encouraged the farmers. The country's Finance Minister had predicted the death of 1 crore people, by 1950, the food shortage had ended. The changing symbol of Japan's place in the Far East.

Once it was a symbol of destruction, today, we look upon it with hope, as a symbol of stability. And the same stubbornness was seen in the automobile industry, which is still known as Japan. After many years of the Second World War, Japan's car production was stopped. In 1950, America produced 66 lakh passenger cars. Whereas in Japan, only 1,600 cars were produced. In the 1950s, most people in Japan believed that the country didn't need its own automobile industry.

The government said that Japanese car companies couldn't compete with foreign companies. But some people refused to believe it. One of them was Toyota's founder, Kichiro Toyoda. In the 1940s, when there were restrictions on making cars in Japan, at that time, Kichiro Toyoda said that factory on the road, will keep moving forward until it falls. And will make products that will not be inferior to anyone.

In 1957, Toyota sent its two best cars, Crown and Crown Deluxe, as an experiment to America. But when these cars were tested on the highways of America at high speed, the engine started making strange noises, vibrations occurred and parts broke down. The quality control was so bad that in June 1958, 30 Crown cars were sent to America without headlights. Toyota's official history itself believes that the performance of the initial cars was not worth selling in America.

In America, Toyota's cars were seen as a joke, they were laughed at. But Toyota also learned from this defeat. A new production system was started and today it sells the most cars in the world. smaller numbers of parts to be used when it needed them, allowing the company to operate on a tighter budget. By the way, the story of this company is so interesting that a separate video can be made on it, that what laws the company implemented within itself that made it possible.

But there is another similar story of Masuru Ibuka. Masuru Ibuka started in 1945 in a burnt building of a department store in Tokyo, from a radio repair shop. Later in 1946, along with Navy Lieutenant Akio Morita, he started a new company with a capital of only 1.9 lakh yen. His first product was an electric rice cooker, which was so bad that Ibuka named it as failed prototype number one. Let's call this failed prototype number one.

And then in 1952, they went to America and found out that the Western Electric Company was selling its new invention, the transistor's production rights. Transistor is a small electronic component made of silicon which boosts electrical signals to increase their power Nowadays, it is used in every device from phones to laptops Ibuka was a small company, they didn't have that much money The Japanese government had already refused to help them The government had said that this would be foolish that advanced technology like a transistor is not the same as a small factory bus.

But still, somehow, Ibuka succeeded in getting the rights to make transistors. And for the first time, Ibuka made a radio out of this transistor. In September 1955, their company launched Japan's first transistor radio, TR-55. And after 2 years, the world's smallest transistor radio, TR-63, came. This radio could fit in the pocket of a shirt. That's why it was also called pocketable radio. You won't believe it, this radio hit America so hard that to meet the Christmas demand, the company had to book charter planes.

And at the same time, a watch company in America offered them an order of one lakh radios. But on the condition that the brand name of the radio would be on it. Because no one knew about this company. It was a huge offer for a small company. But Akio Morita rejected this offer. , can you guess which company this was? This was Sony. The same Sony that is one of the world's largest electronics companies.

Now, a question will come to your mind. Whether it is Toyota or Sony, these are the examples of individual companies. The owners of these companies must have done something that made them successful. What is their connection with the story of Japan? , the connection is that this story is not only of these two companies. This is the story of the entire Japan at that time, which refused to accept defeat.

Toyota and Sony are just two examples, there are no shortcomings in many such examples. Honda's founder Soichiro Honda, a son of a iron man and a mechanic himself, who started a garage in a wooden hut in 1946. In fact, the government wanted to limit car manufacturing to only a few big companies. But Soichiro Honda refused to follow the government's instructions. Now, it is not that the Japanese government did not want to help these people.

The problem was that in the 1950s, Japan had very little foreign exchange, i.e. dollars. So the government only gave dollars to some selected industries and companies to import goods. But as Japanese companies progressed, they also brought in foreign exchange with them and the shortage of dollars began to increase. Apart from this, there was a high growth rate and jobs were created. The situation was that by the mid-1950s, Japan's economy had exceeded the level of the Second World War.

But at this point, Japan's infrastructure was still insufficient. And Japan could not grow much further without fixing it. And at this time, the man who was the most important person in the growth story of Japan entered the picture. A man who made economic growth the national consensus of the country. He was Japan's Prime Minister, Ikeda Hayato. He came up with an income doubling plan in December 1960.

The target of this plan was to double Japan's income in the next 10 years. And to do this, the most powerful infrastructure was given to increase it. Which Japan needed. The country was home to expressways, monorails, bullet trains and highways, and the public infrastructure was also strengthened. The most important step here was to focus on education and training. Increasing science and technology is the first condition for the development of any country.

In the 1950s and 60s, Japan spent 21-22% of its total government spending on education alone. It was the most in America, Britain, the Soviet Union, and India at that time. And as time went by, this spending increased. In 1960, Japan spent 612 billion yen on education. Whereas in 1973, this amount had exceeded 5 trillion yen. In other words, in 13 years, their education budget increased by 8 times.

This had a direct impact on the children there. In 1950, only 42.5% of the children in Japan could reach high school. In 1975, this amount reached 91.9%. And in education, their focus was mostly on science and technology. After World War II, it was decided that the government should focus on science and technology. That's why in 1951, the government introduced the Industrial Education Promotion Law.

And in 1953, the Science Education Promotion Law. Both these laws aimed at teaching students skills that would be useful in the industry. And to promote science education. In schools, science was taught through practicals and experiments. the central government would take half the cost of these equipments. In 1957, Japan made 8,000 student plans. According to which, the 8,000 seats of science and technology were increased in the next 4 years.

After that, in 1961, 20,000 student plans were brought. In which the seats of science and engineering were decided to be increased by more than 20,000. And here again, the target was of 4 years, but Japan completed it in 3 years. Compare it with your country, There are not enough seats in colleges, and government schools are closing down. In the last 12 years, the government schools have been decreasing in India.

Meaning, we are doing the right thing in the wrong way. And the gas that was coming out of the gutter, we used the same gas to make tea. And what happened in Japan? In 1955, the number of students studying science and technology in Japan was 80,000. In 1975, it increased to 4 lakh. These graduates had such a high demand that in the 1960s, many years came when every graduate of engineering got a job in Japan.

And the Japanese government did not leave any trace here. In addition, changes in trade policies also liberalized the entire economy, which helped the private industry. And while doing all this, Japan did not forget its poor people. Social security and social welfare were invested so that government help could be delivered to the needy. The Japanese government and people worked so hard that the income doubling plan that critics were calling fantasy, was achieved in just 6-7 years instead of 10.

Imagine, on one side there are our politicians who show dreams of $5 trillion. They say that they will achieve it by 2022. In the next 5 years, we can become an economy of $5 trillion. We are not able to achieve it even after many years of delays. and there, the target set by Japan was completed in half the time. The target was of 7.8% growth, but Japan's economy increased by 10% every year. Only this one plan supercharged Japan's economy.

That country where there were no jobs after the Second World War, and the income was very low. There were so many jobs that people became poor. There was a shortage of workers. Young people from the villages were filling up in special trains and coming to the factories of the cities, which were called golden eggs. But one question here is that all these factories, highways, and bullet trains were built by How did they get the money? Japan had neither oil nor colonies.

The answer to this is the common people there. From 1947 to 1949, the Japanese family's budget was negative. People were not saving but were eating their savings. But what happened after that was shocking. From 1961 to 1986, for 25 years, every year a family was saving more than 15% of its income. And by the mid 1970s, this figure had reached 23%. Which means that an average family, was saving 23% of the money they were earning.

This was the highest number in all the developed countries of OECD. And this savings did not live in the vault of the house. It went to the banks and post offices. And from there, it was loaned to the factories that were building Japan. And this saving was being taught to people since childhood. In the 1950s, more than 30,000 schools and 80 lakh children were taking part in children's banks. That is, Japanese Miracle was not funded by a foreign investor, but by the common people there with a domestic budget.

This was a turning point in the Japanese story. This country was uprooted from the ashes of the Second World War. And it announced it in front of the world in 1964. On 1st October 1964, a train leaves Tokyo's railway station. Tokaido Shinkansen. It was the world's first bullet train, running at a speed of 210 kmph. The Japs call it the bullet. They're super express that thrusts aside all existing ideas of train speed.

Europe's first high speed train, France's TGV, arrived after 17 years. After the Second World War, the country where homeless people were forced to live in train boxes, made one generation ahead of the technology. The effect of increasing science education was now clearly visible. And just nine days after the start of this train, on 10 October 1964, the Olympic Games began in Tokyo. The first Olympics in Asia.

October 10, 1964. The first nation to ever hold Olympic competition. An interesting fact here is that the face of these Olympics was made by Yoshinori Sakai, 19 years old. which was born on 6th August 1945 in Hiroshima, the day the atomic bomb fell. The city of Hiroshima, which was said to have been a place where grass would not grow for 70 years, was again under attack by the bomb after 3 days. It took only 3 days for a dead city to start again.

Hiroshima was reconstructed as a peace symbol. by 1958, the population of Hiroshima had reached its pre-war level. Hiroshima had returned to its former glory, like a phoenix. And this is the story of Japan. By 1968, after Japan, America and the Soviet Union, the world's third largest economy had been formed. Between 1946 and 1976, that is, within just 30 years, Japan's economy had increased by 55 times.

How mind-blowing is this? You can guess from this, that Japan has only 0.3% of the world's land. And 3% of the population. But its share in the global economy was 10%. The Japan that was ridiculed for its cheap cars, 22 years later, in 1980, the same Japan left America behind, and became the world's number one car producer. 6 years later, in 1986, left America behind in the modern industry like semiconductors.

And became number one in the market share. In memory chips, Japan's share remained 80% for a long time. And it had become Japan's specialty. In 1955, the per capita annual income of the country increased from $217 to $24,000 in 1988. It was perhaps the highest in the world at that time. The America that had once occupied Japan, started writing books about it. that he should learn from Japan. There is a saying in Japan, Nana korobi ya oki means, fall seven times, get up eight times.

Japan didn't fall seven times, it fell more than that. But every time, it got up more than once. This was Hiroshima, immediately after the atomic bomb. People stir and strive for the normal living they once knew. There is hope in the air. Perhaps the path from defeat will lead to a better way of living than they have ever known before. If you want one lesson from this video, be stubborn like the Japanese people.

Learn to fall and rise again and again. Invest in yourself. Educate yourself. And if you want to upskill yourself in the field of AI, don't forget to join the AI Masterclass. You can click here to join. Or you can find the link in the description below. And if you liked this video and want to watch more videos like this, then the story of Singapore is also very interesting. Singapore was once a very poor country.

But its turnaround was as miraculous as Japan's. But there, more credit goes to a politician than the people. You can find out more about it by clicking here. Thank you very much.