Comments by "PeterC" (@peterc4082) on "Askjapan" channel.

You're ranked 80th because you're very rich. Japan is the 3 or 4th richest country in the world. You are incredibly lucky or blessed. In that regard, you did not have to learn foreign languages, you could remain isolated and export, export, export. You exported manufactured products, leading to closure of our own factories in the 70s-90s and still do and your own companies hire natives abroad. Very few of your people have to go abroad, basically the senior management only. Locally you're well off. You don't have to learn English because you don't have to seek work abroad. Where there is no need, there is no way. I think, be happy you have your own isolated country with its own quirks and that gives you plenty of tourism, export opportunities and soft power. For now the Pax Americana is holding but I don't know how you perceive things but American hegemony may soon be ending, and China will be the guarantor of security in the Pacific. Maybe learning Mandarin will be the future for some Japanese. English less, so. Geopolitics is important.
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I think the times Japan enjoyed 70s-2000s were exceptional and the golden age. I don't think they are going to come back for at least this generation. You have over tourism, but at least you get an income from these tourists. It could be worse, nobody wants to visit and spend money there and that's not so good.
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@linuxman7777 Japan was also ruined by decadence I'd say. A little poverty will help Japanese people focus and balance their lives better. Middle school girls going on enjo kosai with middle aged salarymen for Luis Vuitton handbags was the Japanese teen thing in the 90s and early 2000s. Now the salarymen can't afford the LV for these children so maybe the kids can focus their lives on ethical things.
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@askjapan9669 The good times are over. The Americans are collapsing. I think the decline is shown how incompetent they have become at handling the Russians and they have nothing to offer the EU. We in the former Warsaw Pact at least rely on their defense as do you, but their time is coming. People like Elbridge Colby say that the US won't sacrifice Seattle for Seoul or Berlin, and they won't for Tokyo either. Your country will have to go nuclear and you will have to be serious about your defense or accept Chinese protection. Do people in your country speak about this? Because some people claim we are not far from a US-China war and they think US will be pushed out of the Pacific.
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