Getting with the program? You seem to have the idea this happened spontaneously, but it was nothing but: Japan and Germany's reconstruction and re-industrializa

Getting with the program? You seem to have the idea this happened spontaneously, but it was nothing but: Japan and Germany's reconstruction and re-industrialization was by design, as part of the Bretton Woods system, Marshall Plan, and Truman Doctrine. Those countries were intended to be industrial hubs of Asia and Europe respectively: The US would invest in and build factories in those countries. > To encourage long-term adjustment, the United States promoted European and Japanese trade competitiveness. Policies for economic controls on the defeated former Axis countries were scrapped. Aid to Europe and Japan was designed to rebuild productivity and export capacity. In the long run it was expected that such European and Japanese recovery would benefit the United States by widening markets for U.S. exports, and providing locations for U.S. capital expansion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system When Chinese becoming isolated after 1949, they couldn't become a market for Japanese goods, we instead geared Japanese manufacturing for the Korean War effort. The US occupiers of Japan created the centrally-planned Ministry of International Trade and Industry to help build the equipment the US needed for the Korean War effort. It was an astounding success, and provided Japan the boost it needed to become a global industrial power even as the US waned. If there's any phase China is entering, it's the New Dealer and Keynesian-dominated policies that were successful for the US after WWII, following Dengist liberalization of the economy. Except instead of investing in war, they're investing in infrastructure, and it's working.