CORRECT STARTING POINT
Assurance of Success
IN December 1941, during WWII, the top naval base of USA, Pearl Harbour located on the Pacific island of Hawaii, was attacked without prior warning by the Japanese. So severe was the bombardment that, of the hundred odd naval vessels anchored there, only a handful survived. This had the immediate effect of bringing America into the war as one of the Allied Powers. Up till that point, USA had no direct involvement in hostilities save as a supplier of armaments to the enemies of Japan. The Japanese attack was uncalled-for and ill-considered.
They did not realize the magnitude of their error until 1945, when America finally took its revenge by dropping the first-ever atom bombs on two of Japan’s major industrial centres, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan was utterly annihilated as a military power.
Simply by accepting the fact that aggression could not pay dividends and then channelizing its potential in the field of industry, Japan has managed quite miraculously to supersede all the other nations of the world.
The Americans then kept a tight military and political hold over Japan. But the latter country, astonishingly, recuperated from the horror of large-scale atomic devastation, and proceeded to adapt itself to an entirely new set of circumstances. Before the World War II, it had relied on the ‘power of weapons’. But after witnessing the destruction these caused, it relinquished their use and set about reconstructing the country along entirely peaceful lines. Having once adopted this course, the Japanese showed great versatility, resilience and assiduity, and their success has been such that Japan is now considered the second greatest industrial power in the entire world today. Its trade surplus in 2020 was 5.86 billion USD.
In the field of industry, the victors have been subjugated by the vanquished. Simply by accepting the fact that aggression could not pay dividends and then channelizing its potential in the field of industry, Japan has managed quite miraculously to supersede all the other nations of the world.
The Americans are greatly upset at this state of affairs and refer to the present ‘invasion’ of Japanese goods as an Economic Pearl Harbour. A book written by Ezra F Vogel under the title of Japan as Number One, became a best-seller when it was published (1979). It clearly shows that Japan has far outrun the US and Britain in business. So far as foreign exchange is concerned, Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, its foreign exchange reserves count to 1,311,254 US dollars in 2022. This ranks Japan as second only to China.
How did Japan turn its military defeat into economic conquest? By encouraging patience and perseverance and avoiding provocation, it concentrated its energies on peaceful (and, of course, remunerative) fields, rather than indulging in retaliatory violence. It initially accepted the military and political supremacy of other nations. It quickly adapted itself to new scales of values, then set about to the economic rehabilitation of the country without wasting a single moment on bewailing lost opportunities.
We must never lose sight of the fact that we are not lone travellers on this earth. There are always others who are trying to race ahead of us in this world of competition.
It didn’t blame others for its misfortunes or on pointless nostalgia. Rather than committing further mistakes, Pearl Harbour being the greatest, it concentrated its attention on seizing existing opportunities. In short, Japan accepted the blame for its own destruction, and, once having done so, was able earnestly to launch itself on its own economic uplift.
This episode projects a very important lesson for us. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are not lone travellers on this earth. There are always others who are trying to race ahead of us in this world of competition. The resulting situation can be approached in two entirely different ways. One is to collide with anything which obstructs our path. The other is to circumvent obstacles and then to go on our way.
Clearly, the first is self-destructive, while the second, of avoiding confrontations, is much more likely to prove advantageous. A ship which sails straight at a rock or an iceberg is doomed to disaster. It is the ship which veers temporarily off its course to avoid the reefs which will eventually sail safely into harbour. Similarly, Japan, by giving up ideas of military supremacy, has reached a much more worthwhile objective – economic supremacy.
It is worth remembering that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, once symbols of Japan’s total annihilation as a military power, are now symbols, seven decades later, of Japan’s stunning economic success.