WI/AHC: Japan becomes the World's largest economy?

Until the late 80s/early 90s, it seemed almost inevitable that Japan would supplant the US as the world's dominant economic power. Your job is to ensure that such an event becomes reality, and if so, what it would do to the world's geopolitical structure?
 
I think the best for this to happen is to have Japan somehow avoid the bubble burst that killed it, I'm not really well versed in economics but I'm sure that somehow having the USA do worse in terms of economics would do the trick. That and having the USA involved in a WWIII in both a conventional and nuclear sense (and in between), provided it doesn't do much damage to Japan in terms of nukes.
 
I don't think that was ever really gonna happen. If my Google-fu is any indication, Japan had about a third of the US' GDP at its peak in the 80's, so any panicking about them surpassing us relied on extrapolation of the crazy growth rates that they had at the time. And given the systemic corruption and government chicanery that undergirded that growth machine, I don't think it was a sustainable process, either. And considering just how many countries in East Asia follow or followed a similar model where public savings were turned into government-directed investment into private firms that had political connections, well, I suspect guiding them towards a different growth model would take a lot of work.
 
Until the late 80s/early 90s, it seemed almost inevitable that Japan would supplant the US as the world's dominant economic power. Your job is to ensure that such an event becomes reality, and if so, what it would do to the world's geopolitical structure?

I do not know if this was ever plausible.

Japan's GDP per capita even now is quite high, a bit less than 90% of the United States by one metric, a bit less than 70% when using PPPs.

Could Japan equal the United States' GDP per capita? Let's stipulate it does. Going by PPP, its economy would grow more than 30% to some seven trillion. This would take Japan's economy from 26% of the US to 38%.

We could radically increase the Japanese population while keeping GDP per capita roughly the same, but how would that be possible? A Japan of 300 million or more people would itself be the product of a huge POD.

Failing that, we could try to make Japan even richer than the United States, much richer. I very much doubt that's possible. The only countries richer than the United States are either natural resource exporters (Qatar, Brunei, Kuwait, Norway, etc) or highly specialized international financial and trading centres (Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Luxembourg) or microstates or some combination of two or even three of these categories. I do not see how a large and already highly developed post-industrial economy could leapfrog ahead of the United States so hugely without something unforeseeable and likely implausible.
 
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Wait, Ireland is richer than us? *wiki*

So, only according to the IMF, with World Bank and UN figures having us up, but it's close in all cases. Huh, I guess I just assumed that the Potato Famine and sectarian strife and British rule had fucked them over for a millennium.

This is easier if Japan holds Korea and Taiwan and never started the 1937 war with China.

Taiwan adds only another 20 million or so, so the population imbalance remains insurmountable. And really, I don't think they could keep Korea if other colonial empires still dissolve themselves. Koreans won't accept Japanese rule if even Nigerians can defeat the British.
 
You need to demographically screw America as bad as OTL Europe and wank Japan demographically as much as America was. That is the mere starting point.
 
140 years the US in OTL has been the largest economy, even the PRC wont surpass the US until 2026 at the earliest (the idea that PPP matters and the PRC already has is ridiculous, it doesnt matter what the PRC can purchase in their own backwards country, the world relies on US dollars to purchase anythinf from gold to oil). Even then GDP per capita will mean the PRC will be at best 1/5th that of the US. If the world's largest nation by population can't surpass the US easily then it makes it very hard for Japan.
 
I don't think what the OP asks for is possible with Japan being well, an island which already has problems with living space for its population. Said population therefore can't really increase, and without an increase there is no way for Japan to surpass the US or China.
 
I don't think what the OP asks for is possible with Japan being well, an island which already has problems with living space for its population. Said population therefore can't really increase, and without an increase there is no way for Japan to surpass the US or China.
That's why I went with the idea of having the USA and China having their populations decline through a Third World War of sorts against the USSR, though you might have a point about the population issue with Japan.
 

Wallet

Banned
The US stays neautral in WW2, and never get the economic boom it did with the mass industry arming the allies.

Nazi Germany overruns Europe and Britain sued for peace. The Soviets and Japanese sign a peace treaty, and the Soviets save Moscow with troops from Siberia. Hopefully they won't ever take over by the generals, so the democracy they had in the 20s goes on. Eventually the soviets the reach the polish border and duke it out with their Germans. Nukes and chemicals weapons are used but by 1947 the Soviets reach the Rhine. When the Germans pull out of France, the British quickly cross into an even more exploited France.

While Europe is burning, the Japanese over run the European colonies (Indonesia and Indochina) With no more Soviet aid for the communists or allied aid to the nationalists, the Japanese take china and form the great East Asian co prosperity sphere.

Better leaders take over a Japan that was never bombed or starved by 1960, which liberalizes like before the Generals take over. They form an alliance with the US, now scared of the Soviets.

When the British colonies (India, Hong, Kong, Burma, and Philippines) get independence they enter a military and economic alliance with Japan.

A Japan that controls China and East Asia, and being the main trade partners of India and the US, and that was never destroyed by WW2, could be the worlds largest economy

I might make this into a timeline
 
I don't think what the OP asks for is possible with Japan being well, an island which already has problems with living space for its population. Said population therefore can't really increase, and without an increase there is no way for Japan to surpass the US or China.
Population has little to do with GDP. The Soviet Union had more people than the USA during the Cold War. China and India have always had more people. Japan had a larger economy by FAR over the PRC for over 50 years. With technology and automation, which the Japanese are at the forefront in, labor is becoming less and less important to the economy. Which is why the PRC is less interested in being the cheapest labor nation and instead on growing a middle class while they can now, good times for nations which have low labor costs will be ending in this century. When labor costs are no longer a consideration, do you put your business in Burma or South Korea, or in American terms- Alabama or New York?
 
Population has little to do with GDP. The Soviet Union had more people than the USA during the Cold War. China and India have always had more people. Japan had a larger economy by FAR over the PRC for over 50 years. With technology and automation, which the Japanese are at the forefront in, labor is becoming less and less important to the economy. Which is why the PRC is less interested in being the cheapest labor nation and instead on growing a middle class while they can now, good times for nations which have low labor costs will be ending in this century. When labor costs are no longer a consideration, do you put your business in Burma or South Korea, or in American terms- Alabama or New York?

You know maybe you can have a Japan that can invest in overseas agricultural areas in undeveloped countries with all that large money similar to how South Korea does IOTL to deal with the population problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism#South_Korea.27s_land_acquisitions
 

Deleted member 1487

Until the late 80s/early 90s, it seemed almost inevitable that Japan would supplant the US as the world's dominant economic power. Your job is to ensure that such an event becomes reality, and if so, what it would do to the world's geopolitical structure?
The only way it would ever be possible is if they got 1980s market access, plus still have their colonial empire and no WW2. Otherwise known as ASB. It is impossible without magical intervention.

You know maybe you can have a Japan that can invest in overseas agricultural areas in undeveloped countries with all that large money similar to how South Korea does IOTL to deal with the population problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism#South_Korea.27s_land_acquisitions
Remember in the 1980s when Japanese people would buying up property everywhere? China is doing the same thing in Africa now.
http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-eighties-america-buying-spree-2014-9
The fact is the Japanese buying spree was based on unsustainable economic growth, especially with Chinese competition entering into the world stage and the US market getting taken over by the Chinese. So you'd need someway to keep China relatively economically isolated and really underdeveloped so as not to compete with Japan. Japan in a lot of ways actually took over the historical position China had 3-500 years ago as the economic giant of Asia, but a poorer version due to the lack of raw materials in their territory. So you'd need Japanese colonialism to succeed without invading China and keeping the Chinese market controlled via local dominance, while maintaining large Japanese birthrates and successfully Nippon-izing their mainland empire and finding Manchurian oil. Then they'd need major world market access on top of that.

Perhaps have their opium ring in China continue and increase: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...s-opium-dealer-in-wartime-china/#.WAuROYWMg2U

Anyway the best I can tell the Japanese would have to avoid WW2 and the 2nd Sino-Japanese war to have a shot at being the world's largest economy. The best bet for that I think would be to have no Nazi government in Germany and have Weimar weather the storm and keep up and expand their relations with China. Without the Nazis withdrawing from the LoN and causing problems in Europe there can be a real intervention against Italy in 1936 and then the Spanish civil war not getting off the ground without Fascist support. So Japan/the IJA then doesn't think it can get away with a war with China or at least if it does the international response forces them to back down. Without the world descending into trade blocks and the European colonial holdings falling apart, albeit more slowly, while the US doesn't get the benefits of OTL of winning WW2, and Japan keeps up it's colonialism, while the KMT mismanages China and Japan continues to keep market access throughout the region without losing access to global markets due to a standing embargo, then you might have a shot of them dominating the world economy.

Even though their economic model wouldn't be world class like it was in the 1980s and still have the Zaibatsu model problems, they'd have mainland settler colonies, resources, and markets. Depending on whether the USSR without WW2 or the Nazis starts to implode sooner due to Stalin's longer reign and lack of external enemies to legitimize his rule, perhaps Japan will encroach on the Soviet Far East and Mongolia successfully, controlling those resources areas for their own exploitation. Having Korea and Manchuria as part of the Japanese economic zone, they'd have all those resources exploited for the Japanese economy, plus a captive market for their goods. Perhaps they would be able to get to the #1 economic spot with that if the KMT keeps China in the dumps and Japan can economically subordinate them and keep the drugs they were historically selling them flowing, profiting off of that, and disrupting that society so it never becomes the OTL Chinese economic giant.
 
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Until the late 80s/early 90s, it seemed almost inevitable that Japan would supplant the US as the world's dominant economic power. Your job is to ensure that such an event becomes reality, and if so, what it would do to the world's geopolitical structure?
It did not ever seem that way to anyone other than the working class in America who didnt know anything other than they saw the rust belt rusting and Japanese products everywhere. The truth is that Japan was at its best had half the GDP of the USA (or at that point I suppose we would have been using GNP for statistical purposes). There was no risk of the Japanese surpassing the US. That was a myth used to scare the public for political purposes.
 

Deleted member 1487

It did not ever seem that way to anyone other than the working class in America who didnt know anything other than they saw the rust belt rusting and Japanese products everywhere. The truth is that Japan was at its best had half the GDP of the USA (or at that point I suppose we would have been using GNP for statistical purposes). There was no risk of the Japanese surpassing the US. That was a myth used to scare the public for political purposes.
The problem was that Japanese corporate culture was smarter when it came to international competition; US corporations didn't funnel money back into production processes to keep themselves globally competitive, which is why the steel and auto industries were smashed by Japanese competition. The CEOs blamed American workers and consumers for not being hardworking and patriotic enough to buy their crap, not wanting to accept it was their own greed and poor management that led to them getting murdered on the international markets. It's ironic given how much gloating the US did about the inefficiencies of the USSR by not exposing their production to international competition, only to then be hammered by the Germans and Japanese and require bailouts from the government. Now it is China the is filling the role Japan once did, while Japan had experienced the problems of it's own corporate management and labor policies/lack of immigration.
 
Not likely to happen. Given their size, they have massively outperformed as it is. But, it might have happened had they made the transition to software focused businesses in the 1990s. By the late 90s and early aughts, they dominated commodity hardware and semiconductors. But their engineers never focused on software and so they have lagged tremendously. Imagine Google, Facebook, Salesforce.com, Uber, Priceline.com, and a host of other software companies being from Japan. But, if you read Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma", you will understand why this is so unlikely.

As to the, no WWII thesis, I would argue that it was that they lost WWII that they were able to be so successful. Sometimes its easier to build from scratch as there are no entrenched stakeholders resisting change. Imagine the military ceding power to industrialists. It's not unheard of and they probably would have done well. But I would bet a lot that they would have done dramatically less well than OTL.
 
The problem was that Japanese corporate culture was smarter when it came to international competition; US corporations didn't funnel money back into production processes to keep themselves globally competitive, which is why the steel and auto industries were smashed by Japanese competition. The CEOs blamed American workers and consumers for not being hardworking and patriotic enough to buy their crap, not wanting to accept it was their own greed and poor management that led to them getting murdered on the international markets. It's ironic given how much gloating the US did about the inefficiencies of the USSR by not exposing their production to international competition, only to then be hammered by the Germans and Japanese and require bailouts from the government. Now it is China the is filling the role Japan once did, while Japan had experienced the problems of it's own corporate management and labor policies/lack of immigration.

Well, there were a few things going on here. First, the American conglomerates were horribly inefficient although the deregulation and much derided investor activism of the 1980s corrected a lot of this - greed actually helped us recover in the 90s and 00s. Second, Japanese companies focused on market share over profits. That works really well in scale businesses like steel and autos but it works less well in other industries where scale offers less of an advantage. Finally, the Japanese had an outsider's advantage in the 60s and 70s in that they could focus on the weaknesses of American industry and exploit those. Its usually easier for an outsider to do this than it is for an incumbent. Finally, they were leaders in the 60s and 70s in Total Quality Management. Jonathan Deming went to Japan in the early 50s and taught them methods to improve the quality of their production via better quality control such as statistical sampling. There wasnt really any excuse for American companies to be so complacent about this but credit the Japanese for being so quick to adopt his methods. Again, the outsider often has an advantage working from scratch than the incumbents.

Finally, I would argue that, for the last 20+ years the Japanese economy has been horribly inefficient, allowing inferior companies to exist even though they have no competitive value. While it has helped employment remain low, it has virtually ensured their inability to adapt to the new environment and make a rapid recovery. All of this is possible due to the convoluted corporate regulation that favors the incumbent oligopolies and restricts investors from forcing corporate reforms.
 
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