Up to the end of the 20th century, Japan had successfully reconstructed itself from the devastation of war, achieved rapid economic growth, overcame the shock from the 1970s oil crises and improved its international competitiveness in key industries such as electronics, automobiles and precision machinery — all under what might be called a democratic planned economy centered on the industrial policies crafted by the then Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

In 1993, the World Bank published a report titled "East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy," touting as a "miracle" the economic growth achieved by East Asian countries, with Japan as the front-runner.

As the subtitle of the report indicates, World Bank economists were of the view that the East Asian nations could not have achieved the rapid growth without proper public (social) policies pursued by their respective governments, and thus highly evaluated the roles played by those governments. Indeed, not only in Japan but also in other East Asian countries, governments served the role of a control tower in their bid to catch up and excel advanced Western economies.