Japan is a state located in East Asia. It is located on 4 large islands (Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku and Koshu) and numerous small ones adjacent to them. The territory of the country is about 372.2 thousand sq. km. The population is about 122 million, of which more than 99% are Japanese by nationality. The capital of the country is Tokyo (about 12 million people).
Japan is a monarchy headed by an emperor, but under the Constitution of 1889, legislative power was exercised by the emperor in conjunction with parliament.
Japan's economy has developed under the influence of many factors. At the end of the 60s of the 19th century, the unfinished bourgeois revolution opened a new capitalist stage in the history of Japan. The large-scale bourgeois reform carried out the day before cleared the ground for the development of capitalism in the country. The process of turning the country into an imperialist power was successfully going on.
Japan's economy has been put at the service of foreign policy since 1940. The country entered into a military alliance with Germany and Italy, and since 1941entered World War II. Only after the defeat of militaristic Japan in 1945 did some democratic transformations begin in the country.
The reform model that characterized Japan's post-war economy had the following features. The development of production has become a priority over all others, the country has refused to follow the "laws of the free market." As a result of the "shock economic therapy", by 1949, Japanese industrial production was restored almost completely.
The government pursued such an investment and structural policy that contributed to the formation of industries characteristic of industrialized countries. Japan's economy after World War II developed within the framework of an uncompromising policy of protecting national capital in manufacturing, banking and other areas, and also defended its agriculture with the help of subsidies and protectionist policies.
All this led to the fact that the Japanese economy began to be characterized by a special development model, which was called the planned market. Administrative regulation was combined with the economic system of private enterprise.
The new Constitution of 1947 proclaimed democratic freedoms and rights. The agrarian reform transferred most of the landed estates to the peasants for redemption. The largest monopolies were crushed.
60s-70s –the time when Japan became a particularly prominent figure in the world economy. It has become the second power of the capitalist world in terms of gross national product and industrial production.
Now the GNP exceeds 11% of the world, in terms of GNP per capita, the country is ahead of the United States. It accounts for about 12% of the industrial production of the world. The adaptation of the economy to the "expensive yen" is almost completed. There has already been a transition to a new model for the development of the country's economy, which puts the focus on domestic consumption rather than exports.
