True, in fact i admire Japan even more, I have been there few times. They had already made a policy decades ago after second world war whereby they will be self sufficient in almost every field, and today Japanese people mainly consume made in Japan products. In fact you will hardly see a western product that dominates Japan, except in areas like software and some areas in high tech military equipments where they are restrained by the U.S in going solo rather than JV. The japanese government has succeeded in their policies(though i admit most of it was due to protectionism) in making japan self sufficient in almost every field. for example before american/western automibile industry/cars used to dominate Japan, but after 1960s when Japanese government introduced some laws baring foreign automakers/tarrifs/laws/etc Japanese companies auto companeis started emerging and dominated the local market untill today. You cant start running without crawling. Kudos to the Japanese.
Here here, my British buddy! Thank You for your kind observation.