For quite some time now the mass media has been reporting pessimistic views of Japan's future. March 1991 marked the end of an economic bubble and the start of economic stagnation. From then until 2009, Japan's economy grew by an average 0.8 percent per year, an extremely low figure compared with other countries.

Japan was once applauded as the "treasure house" of high technologies. Today, however, it is being caught by China and South Korea. They could even surpass Japan in the not-to-distant future.

A few decades ago, Japan worked hard to "catch up with and surpass" the advanced countries of the West. It did so just a quarter of a century after the end of World War II. Today the Chinese and the South Koreans are about to achieve what Japan has achieved.