Abstract
In 1639, the rule of Tokugawa Iemitsu officially stated the edict of separation of Japan, establishing a long period of isolationism for the Nippon archipelago. During this period, every contact between Japan and the outside world was forbidden, and "every Japanese who would leave the country would be sentenced to death." Two centuries later, it is all Japan that is actually forced "to leave Asia to join the West", as the expression says. This great shift in the Japanese attitude happened in 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry came with his fleet into the bay of Edo (Tokyo) and ordered Japan's rulers to drop their barriers and open the country to trade. This incident marked for sure the beginning of a long process where Japan "left Asia to join the West", creating a very original model of development with "Asian spirit, Western technology". Indeed, when Commodore Perry showed up, the Japanese told the Americans to go to Nagasaki because it was the only island where exchanges with the West were allowed. But Commodore Perry refused, and Japan concluded that the only way to "expel the barbarians" in the forthcoming times would be to embrace their technology and grow stronger and take the decision to join the West. Afterwards, in the next twenty years, the Japanese eager to access "western things" grew with unlimited bounds: just after the opening to trade were settled and built unusual and never-seen-before Western things in Japan such as the country's first bakery (1860), the first photo shop (1862), the establishment of telephone (1869), the brewery of beer (1869), the development of contemporary cinema (1870), the printing of daily newspapers (1870), and the creation of public lavatories (1871). Following this same strategy over the next century and a half, Japan emerged as one of history's great economic success stories. This development strategy seems to have been a very successful one, allowing Japan to face an "economic miracle" that enabled the archipelago to position itself as one of the strongest economic power of the worlds.
