AHC: Japan GDP surpass America GDP

Well the premise of this thread is simple. What none ASB change need to happen in history for Japanese GDP to surpass American GDP? Divergent point I allow is anything post WW2. I will even accept case where Japanese GDP temporarily surpass America even if it does not stay that way.

Any suggestion? Would such scenerio require many hard change or would it have been able to happen with relatively minor change in history?
 
Many many changes.

We are talking WW2 not happening and Korea and Manchuria being included in Japan or nuclear war or something like that.

Given the population difference you need a major Ameriscrew or a Japanwank or something.
 
Very early move to high automation and electronics/IT (and I am talking automation levels of the late 90s or early 00s in the 70s) is the only way to do it. Also some sort of a cultural reform to decrease depression/suicide/karoshi (for their famous work ethics and work dedication, the Japanese are not that more productive)
A bigger territory (Korea/Manchuria/some Pacific islands) would probably help too, otherwise yep, US has a huge population advantage.
 
I just don't think it's possible without nukes because the population differential is too extreme. And you can't just throw Korea/Manchuria/whatever on the pile because realistically those regions would be exploited for the benefit of the home islands rather than getting comparable levels of investment and development, not to mention being sources of potential rebellion all the while, so they don't really fix the population problem as such.
 
I think you would need some sort of confederated empire which includes Japan, Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan and parts of China, with the rest of it as allies but divided among each other. It would require a combination of Pan-Asianism, no military governments and non effective Chinese reunification movements. An early 1900s POD would then be needed.

Difficult but certainly not ASB. Perhaps a good PoD would be if Anglo-Japanese relations sour in the early part of the century, thus Japan turns to Germany and America, but not enough to participate on the Central Powers. Meanwhile Pan-Asianist politicians and thinkers get more prominence against those who advocate using Korea as a mere colony. Figures like Chiang die before they consolidate and the country becomes heavily fractured. Finally by the 1930s these warlords begin consolidating nation states, all in some sort of economic association with Japan, which by then also annexes Manchuria.
 
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I think that runs into the same problem you get trying to make the Imperial Federation work - the country that's supposed to lead the effort would never sincerely commit to it because they'd be left a minority within their new empire. Any Co-Prosperity Sphere that wouldn't end with the Chinese tail wagging the Japanese dog would be dismissed as a joke by non-Japanese and rebelled against.
 
Actually, this is...if not quite easy, then not nearly as difficult as people are making it out to be thanks to the "I will even accept cases where Japanese GDP temporarily surpasses American GDP". Already IOTL the Japanese GDP came quite close to U.S. GDP in 1995 ($5.449 trillion versus $7.64 trillion). All you really need to do is have a case where American GDP temporarily goes down while Japanese GDP goes up and you could more or less easily do this. Even just something like a recession that starts in the United States and then spreads to Japan later might be able to do this under the right circumstances.

As for a PoD, perhaps the ROC somehow retains power on the mainland after World War II, and China takes off earlier (this probably requires a WWII or pre-WWII PoD, however). As a result, Japan's boom is based on selling to both China and the United States (and maybe toss India in there, too). Then there's an economic depression or prolonged recession in the United States that results in their economy stalling while the Japanese continue growing, so that they are able to briefly overtake the United States. Of course, this would only be temporary and not mean that the Japanese economy was the biggest in the world by any measure, but it would still fulfill the OP.
 
Actually, this is...if not quite easy, then not nearly as difficult as people are making it out to be thanks to the "I will even accept cases where Japanese GDP temporarily surpasses American GDP". Already IOTL the Japanese GDP came quite close to U.S. GDP in 1995 ($5.449 trillion versus $7.64 trillion). All you really need to do is have a case where American GDP temporarily goes down while Japanese GDP goes up and you could more or less easily do this. Even just something like a recession that starts in the United States and then spreads to Japan later might be able to do this under the right circumstances.

The difference of "only" $2 trillion and change is a lot. It would take a 28.6% drop in GDP just to bring those figures to parity, and that's about what was lost over four years in the Great Depression. So you need something Great Depression-level catastrophic to happen in the US, a pretty tall order given changes in macroeconomic policy after the Depression, and I'll point out that the OTL stagflation slump wasn't remotely close to meeting this, nor was the Great Recession. This also needs to persist for years, in all likelihood, while somehow failing to affect Japan, despite their economy being so strongly dependent on exports for growth.

And I think that's the big kicker here. Japan's economic fortunes are bound up with those of other countries including the US, so you can't really get a scenario that so heavily devastates the US without also bludgeoning the countries that relied on it as an export market. Dragging the US down to Japan's GDP level by itself barely seems possible, but only if Japan's figures stay level, but they simply wouldn't in the face of such a catastrophe.

And I'll add that this is only realistic, considering the demographics. Japan's population relative to the US got smaller during the post-war era, and in 1995 they had less than half the US's population. Asking them to become over twice as rich as another advanced economy is a ridiculous order when you think about it.
 
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The difference of "only" $2 trillion and change is a lot. It would take a 28.6% drop in GDP just to bring those figures to parity, and that's about what was lost over four years in the Great Depression. So you need something Great Depression-level catastrophic to happen in the US, a pretty tall order given changes in macroeconomic policy after the Depression, and I'll point out that the OTL stagflation slump wasn't remotely close to meeting this, nor was the Great Recession. This also needs to persist for years, in all likelihood, while somehow failing to affect Japan, despite their economy being so strongly dependent on exports for growth.
Strictly speaking, all you need is for the United States to stagnate for a few years while the Japanese have an insanely roaring bubble economy. It's unsustainable as hell, of course, but it could theoretically lead to accomplishing the OP's request. Already IOTL the gap between the U.S. and Japanese GDPs in 1995 was $1 trillion smaller than it had been in 1990 (when the U.S. had a GDP of just under $6 trillion and the Japanese had one of just over $3 trillion).

And I think that's the big kicker here. Japan's economic fortunes are bound up with those of other countries including the US, so you can't really get a scenario that so heavily devastates the US without also bludgeoning the countries that relied on it as an export market. Dragging the US down to Japan's GDP level by itself barely seems possible, but only if Japan's figures stay level, but they simply wouldn't in the face of such a catastrophe.
Well, there's a reason I said that it's "not quite easy" and that my suggestion was specifically to create two other big markets for the Japanese to export to so that the United States can have the flu without the rest of the world catching pneumonia. I was just suggesting that it is not as crazy difficult as some posters in this thread seem to think--Japan probably doesn't need to hold on to Manchuria, and definitely not the whole Co-Prosperity Sphere to make it happen given the OP's stipulation of a "temporary" overtaking.
 
Actually, this is...if not quite easy, then not nearly as difficult as people are making it out to be thanks to the "I will even accept cases where Japanese GDP temporarily surpasses American GDP". Already IOTL the Japanese GDP came quite close to U.S. GDP in 1995 ($5.449 trillion versus $7.64 trillion). All you really need to do is have a case where American GDP temporarily goes down while Japanese GDP goes up and you could more or less easily do this. Even just something like a recession that starts in the United States and then spreads to Japan later might be able to do this under the right circumstances.

As for a PoD, perhaps the ROC somehow retains power on the mainland after World War II, and China takes off earlier (this probably requires a WWII or pre-WWII PoD, however). As a result, Japan's boom is based on selling to both China and the United States (and maybe toss India in there, too). Then there's an economic depression or prolonged recession in the United States that results in their economy stalling while the Japanese continue growing, so that they are able to briefly overtake the United States. Of course, this would only be temporary and not mean that the Japanese economy was the biggest in the world by any measure, but it would still fulfill the OP.
It would be helpful to know how GDP would be measured using "purchasing power parity," which tries to account for fluctuations in exchange rates which can distort such comparisons. I remember when the dollar was almost at parity with the pound, for example.
 
Wasn't their fears of this during the 1980s?
Yes, but they weren't super-realistic. Japan was on a rocket, sure, but some of that was basically fake growth and a lot of it was just "catch up" to other countries in terms of per-capita PPP real GDP. Ultimately, Japan didn't really have the capability to overtake the U.S. in a sustained way (especially since the U.S. GDP curve is just a crazy smooth growth line from 1960 to today, with exactly one noticeable blip: 2008)

It would be helpful to know how GDP would be measured using "purchasing power parity," which tries to account for fluctuations in exchange rates which can distort such comparisons. I remember when the dollar was almost at parity with the pound, for example.
Oh, I assumed that this was nominal, unadjusted GDP. It's much, much easier then.
 
Yes, but they weren't super-realistic. Japan was on a rocket, sure, but some of that was basically fake growth and a lot of it was just "catch up" to other countries in terms of per-capita PPP real GDP. Ultimately, Japan didn't really have the capability to overtake the U.S. in a sustained way (especially since the U.S. GDP curve is just a crazy smooth growth line from 1960 to today, with exactly one noticeable blip: 2008)


Oh, I assumed that this was nominal, unadjusted GDP. It's much, much easier then.


I know at some point the dollar was quite weak against the yen.
 
I know at some point the dollar was quite weak against the yen.
That's part of what I was referring to as "fake growth" (there were also some serious asset bubbles going on, which in combination with a weak dollar is how you got nonsense like "the Imperial Palace is worth more than the state of California")
 
As Workable Goblin stated above, the gap between Japan and the US wasn't that large in 1995 and it wouldn't take much for Japan to surpass the US, if it avoided the infamous Lost Decade. A few thoughts on how this could occur:

Apple goes bankrupt in 1997 and Japan becomes the new Silicon Valley. In the 90s, Japan was considered a high-tech innovator, but subsequently fell behind the US. For example, in the 2000s, Japan was producing cell phones that were very advanced, but generally only sold to a domestic market. Perhaps without Apple, they may be tempted to enter the global market.

The Big 3 (Ford, GM, Chrysler) aren't bailed out and go under in 2008, leading to a second Great Depression in the United States. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan fill the gap, and by 2021 nearly corner the global market on automobiles.
 
Japan opens itself to skilled foreign labor in the 60s. America restricts immigration almost completely in the Post War Era, puts up significant protectionism, and becomes much less corporate friendly (subsidizing only small businesses and farms, localities generally banning chains).

The US is a marginally more advanced 1950s America, has a GDP per head of $35,000, and a population of 240,000,000. Japan is the top international destination for migrants, has something comparable to Silicon Valley, a GDP per head of $60,000, and a growing population of 180,000,000.
 
It would be difficult. Even if at end of World war II, American allowed Japan to keep Korea, Kwantung Leased Territory and Taiwan, Japan would not be able to surpass American GDP. Total population in the ATL would be 220 million. However, Japan still lacks natural resources.

Unless American allowed Japan to keep Manchuria. That would add another 100 million people and an extra 1.0 million sq km of land.
 
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