By the end of the 1980s, Japan had caught up in technology, productivity and living standards to the advanced economies of the West. After the end of the 1980s boom, economic growth plummeted after the bubble burst in 1991 to an average rate of around 0.7 per cent for the remainder of the 1990s, rising slightly to 0.9 per cent in the first decade of this century.

Those two so-called 'lost decades' have frequently been cited as an object lesson in failed economic policies, from central banking to innovation to failure to reform financial institutions.

Growth remains low and there is a host of challenges facing Japan in the longer term because of its hyper-ageing and shrinking population, high government debt and revolving-door politics. On top of all this, Japan suffered the triple disaster of a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in March 2011. Not even the triple disaster seems yet to have stimulated the change that many had hoped for. Reform and change seems agonisingly slow.

Yet Japan is a prosperous society. Its people are safer and enjoy greater longevity than the people of most other countries. Its social infrastructure is the envy of the world and unemployment is low. The cities are efficient and clean. It has modernised while maintaining its uniqueness, with Japanese fashion, music and culture (even anime) a major cultural force in Asia and beyond.