An Economic Pearl Harbour

AN ECONOMIC PEARL HARBOUR Awareness of being behind instils the courage to advance again. Those who fail to recognise their lagging status will remain perpetually behind, with progress forever beyond their reach. AN ECONOMIC PEARL HARBOUR With patience and perseverance, the Japanese redirected their efforts toward peaceful endeavours, prioritising economic growth over retaliatory actions, ultimately achieving success in the aftermath of their military defeat. In December 1941, during World War II, the U.S.A.’s top naval base, Pearl Harbour, 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, the U.S.A. had no direct involvement in hostilities save as a supplier of armaments to the enemies of Japan. The Japanese attack had been uncalled for and ill-considered. However, they did not realise the magnitude of their error until 1945, when America finally took its revenge by dropping the first-ever atomic bombs on two of Japan’s major industrial centres, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus annihilating Japan as a military power. The Americans then kept a tight military and political hold over Japan. But the latter country, astonishingly, recuperated from the horror of