Japan, the first Asian country to industrialise, would lead the way.
As countries industrialise and diversify, their exports grow, which sometimes results in a trade surplus.
Japan opened its ports and began to intensively modernize and industrialise. Renewed contact with the West precipitated profound alteration of Japanese society.
The cyclical nature of scientific discovery has played its part, as has the industry’s misguided belief that it could “industrialise” the R&D process.
The first country to industrialise, Britain was soon turning out more than half the world's coal, pig-iron and cotton textiles.
But in Japan, even the titans find it hard to break with tradition, especially one that dates back to the Meiji era in the late 1800s when Japan began to industrialise.
