ABSTRACT
In terms of modernization and industrialization, what the West taught Japan and Japan adopted from the West is indeed impressive. From the recorded accounts of the twentieth century, the following events reveal the extent of Japanese progress:
• In the 1900s, Japan brought Western imperialism to a halt in East Asia by defeating Russia, which was then a Western power;
• In the 1920s, world trade, at the time largely dominated by Western nations, was challenged by Japanese products copied from Western products and sold at lower prices;
• In the 1940s, Japan terminated Western colonialism in its part of the world, albeit by attempting to impose its own brand of colonialism;
• In the 1960s, Western technological superiority was challenged by imported technology which was being improved to meet world market expectations;
• In the 1980s, by becoming the no. 1 creditor country in the world, Japan put an end to Western financial hegemony.
