Economic history of Japan

The economic history of Japan is most studied for the spectacular social and economic growth in the 1800s after the Meiji Restoration. It became the first non-Western great power, and expanded steadily until its defeat in the Second World War. When Japan recovered from devastation, it became the world's second largest economy behind the United States, and from 2010 behind China as well. Scholars have evaluated the nation's unique economic position during the Cold War, with exports going to both U.S.- and Soviet-aligned powers, and have taken keen interest in the situation of the post-Cold War period of the Japanese "lost decades". Jōmon period In Japanese history, the Jōmon period is the time between 14,000 and 300 BCE, during which Japan was inhabited by a diverse hunter-gatherer and early agriculturalist population united through a common Jōmon culture, which reached a considerable degree of sedentism and cultural complexity. The pottery style characteristic of the first phases of Jōmon culture was decorated by impressing cords into the surface of wet clay and is generally accepted to be among the oldest in the world. The Jōmon period was rich in tools and jewelry made from bone, stone, shell and antler; pottery figurines and vessels; and lacquerware. Archaeologist Junko Habu claims "[t]he majority of Japanese scholars believed, and still believe, that pottery production was first invented in mainland Asia and subsequently introduced into the Japanese archipelago." This seems to be confirmed by recent archaeology. As of now, the earliest pottery vessels in the world date back to 20 000 BP and were discovered in Xianren Cave in Jiangxi, China. The pottery may have been used as cookware. Other early pottery vessels include those excavated from the Yuchanyan Cave in southern China, dated from 16 000 BCE, and at present it appears that pottery emerged at roughly the same time in Japan, and in the Amur River basin of the Russian Far East.