I heard Japan described as being “stuck in the year 2000 since the 1980’s”. I think South Korea fits the original question better than Japan nowadays.
Yeah, Japan had a massive tech boom in the 80s and 90s, but then just kinda stopped growing that field. It’s still there and still a strong industry in Japan, but the cultural tech hype isn’t there anymore, it seems.
Part of the reason for the original enthusiasm is that they were enamored by the country’s recovery post-WWII when they managed to barely obtain permissions from transistor patent holders to manufacture in Japan which led to creation of many of the first consumer transistor radio brands among other electronics manufacturing.
They were the cheap electronics labour market before China, as China wouldn’t see notable economic improvement until after the 80s.
I think Shanghai/China fits it even better. The convenience and technological advances are moving crazy fast.
Meh. They’re head to head for most fields, only thing I can think of that they’ve made noteworthy advances in would be superheated coal burning efficiency to squeeze out more power and at the same time capture more emissions than any comparative western facility. China as a whole has some of the lowest per capita emissions of any nation, though their numbers might not be as accurate for several reasons.
Even their rocketry is kind of pathetic, I think India might even have the edge over them on that front.
