- Ancient Japan to 1185
- Early modern Japan (1550–1850)
- Japan from 1850 to 1945
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External trade
Exports
An outstanding feature of Japan’s economic development after World War II was the rapid advance in overseas sales, even though the share of exports in the country’s gross national product generally remained relatively constant. However, from the point of view of individual industries and as a generator of growth, exports are much more important than their contribution to the national income suggests. Since the late 1960s, Japan has had a trade surplus nearly every year, with the size of the surplus often being the largest in the world.
Reasons for this spectacular export performance are the wide variety of Japan’s industrial output, the shift to products with a relatively high value added, the country’s export competitiveness, and the dominant position of its industry in a number of fields. However, Japanese exports face increasing challenges. Most notable is strong competition from Japan’s industrial neighbors China, South Korea, and Taiwan, as well as from the countries of Southeast Asia. Other factors include protectionist sentiments among Japan’s chief trading partners, the valuation of the yen compared with that of other currencies, and a falloff in exports caused by the increased production of Japanese companies abroad. In addition, the global recession that began in 2007–08 is having a significant impact on Japan’s exports, notably of motor vehicles.
A major change in the composition of exports occurred in the late 20th century. Textiles and food products constituted a considerably decreased share of total exports, while exports of a wide variety of machinery and apparatuses (including electronic equipment and components) and transport equipment grew dramatically, together accounting for the largest proportion of exports. Other important exports included chemicals, chemical products, and metals. China and the United States are Japan’s largest export markets; other countries of East and Southeast Asia and the countries of the European Union (EU) are also important export destinations.
Imports
After World War II, Japan established relatively high tariffs and instituted restrictive nontariff barriers for many products in order to protect domestic markets. Consistently high trade surpluses led to mounting pressure by Japan’s trading partners—notably the United States—for Japan to open its domestic market to foreign goods. Imports have grown steadily as Japan’s trade structure has become more open. Because of Japan’s meagre natural resources, the bulk of its imports are fuels, raw materials, and foodstuffs. The major components of imported manufactured goods are machinery and allied products and chemicals. Japan’s largest suppliers include East and Southeast Asia (notably China), the Middle East, the United States, and Australia.
Internal trade
Japan has a long-established and complex system of wholesale distribution and retail marketing, characterized by numerous intermediary levels in the distribution of goods and small, often family-run retail outlets. This system, for years threatened by Japan’s large department stores, also has been challenged by the growth of supermarket and discount-store chains and by mail-order sales and, more recently, online commerce. Sales traditionally have been transacted in cash, but the use of charge accounts and credit cards has become widespread.
Labor and taxation
Trade unions and employers’ associations
Japanese trade unions have had a relatively short history. Although there were several labor organizations before World War II, trade unions became important only after the U.S. occupation forces introduced legislation that gave workers the right to organize, to bargain with employers, and to strike. Because Japanese trade unions were generally organized on a plant or enterprise basis, their number was relatively large, and in many cases there were different organizations for different plants of the same company.
The great majority of the enterprise unions became affiliated to federations that were loosely organized on craft lines, such as the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions (Jidōsha Soren). Most of these in turn became affiliated with one of four major national labor organizations established after the war. Interest in uniting the rival national organizations deepened during the 1980s, mainly because of the trend toward ever greater concentration in industry and greater cooperation between the various employers’ organizations. In the late 1980s the major national organizations and other private- and public-sector unions were reorganized into the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-Rengō); those unions politically more to the left of JTUC-Rengō formed the much smaller National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenrōren).
While the craft and national federations formulate general policy, discuss and advise on strategy, and coordinate wage offensives, serious negotiations are usually conducted on an enterprise basis by individual unions and the employees, especially during the annual institutionalized “spring offensive” (shuntō) wage drive. JTUC-Rengō serves as a voice for the unions in general, publicizing their demands and dealing with the government and other business organizations.
The unionization rate peaked in the mid-1950s at around two-fifths of the workforce, at a time when Japan was troubled by a series of protracted confrontations between labor and management. However, labor-management relations generally have become nonconfrontational and are now characterized by cooperation, with few working days lost through labor action. Membership gradually fell off, and by the early 21st century the number of employees who were organized was less than half of what it had been 50 years earlier. The major reason for the decline has been the shift in the employment structure itself from manufacturing to trade, coupled with the increasing number of part-time and temporary workers.
Japan has a well-developed system of chambers of commerce and trade and industry associations. These groups serve as a sounding board and make policy recommendations while interacting with politicians, government bureaucracies, and labor. Among the best-known are the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the latter formed in 2002 by the merger of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) and the Japan Federation of Employers’ Association (Nikkeiren).
Taxation
Tax revenues account for the single largest source of the government’s total income. Since World War II the tax system has been characterized by heavy dependence on direct taxes, and steeply progressive income taxes on individuals and high corporate taxes have constituted most of the tax revenues. In the late 1980s an indirect consumption (value-added) tax was imposed on most goods and services to augment the tax structure. Initially, the tax rate was 3 percent, but, after it was increased to 5 percent in the late 1990s, the government undertook a general overhaul of the tax system, in which tax rates were cut, the number of tax brackets was reduced, new deductions were introduced, and certain levies were lifted. However, in relation to national income, the total tax burden for Japan is considerably lower than it is for most other developed countries.
Transportation and telecommunications
Until the latter part of the 19th century, the majority of Japanese people traveled on foot. Vehicular traffic was limited to small wagons, carts, or palanquins (kago) carried by men or animals. The first railway was built between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872, and others soon followed, though the rugged terrain required the construction of many tunnels and bridges. Iron ships were built about the same time, and modern ports were constructed. Road construction, however, tended to lag behind the development of other means of transport, resulting in the present congestion of most urban areas.
Japan now has one of the world’s most developed transport and communications networks. Tokyo especially is an incomparably large focus for transportation; also important are the Keihanshin metropolitan area—which includes the three cities of Ōsaka, Kōbe, and Kyōto—and Nagoya. Other cities—notably Kita-Kyūshū, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Sendai, and Hiroshima—function as regional hubs.
The largest volume of intercity or interregional transport of both passengers and goods moves between the two largest metropolitan regions. Kyushu is connected with Honshu by the world’s first undersea railway tunnel (built in 1941), by an undersea double-decked road tunnel (built in 1958), and by a huge suspension bridge (opened in 1973). With the opening in 1988 of a railway tunnel between Hokkaido and Honshu and of multiple-span railway-road bridges between Honshu and Shikoku, all four of Japan’s main islands are now linked by surface transport.
Roads
The development of Japan’s road network lags behind the country’s general economic progress and is especially inadequate for the large number of cars. Road construction is hampered by the limited area of land in proportion to population. The first limited-access expressway opened in the early 1960s, and by the early 21st century a growing network of such highways had been built throughout the country. The metropolitan regions of Tokyo and Ōsaka have fairly extensive expressway networks within their respective built-up areas. Surface street patterns in Japanese cities are manifold, however, and often hamper the flow of traffic. Cities such as Kyōto and Nara still preserve the gridiron street pattern of the ancient Chinese city plan, though with modifications in built-up inner parts of the cities. In many rural areas as well, the ancient pattern of land division and the resultant road pattern take the rectangular gridiron form. Feudal towns, especially fortified (castle) towns, may have somewhat similar street patterns, though in many cases these are modified (generally in the form of concentric rings) to follow former defensive lines.
Japan has an extremely high density of motor vehicles per unit area in the plains and in other inhabited areas. Trucks represent a much higher proportion of vehicular traffic than in other major motorized countries. The great bulk of domestic freight transport is by truck. Many families now have two or more automobiles and are more likely to drive to a destination than in the past, resulting in road congestion in the big cities and in industrial areas. Although railways still play the major role in carrying commuters, there appears to be no practical solution to the problem of how to reduce the number of cars on the roads. The increases in noxious exhaust gases and in the noise of the traffic are serious problems. Steps taken to alleviate them include stringent pollution-control standards for automobiles and the installation of noise barriers on highways in densely populated areas.
Railways of Japan
Railways play an extremely important role in passenger travel, though they continue to give way to competition especially from road transport but also from air travel. The first Japanese rail line was financed by the British and built by British engineers. Although there was strong opposition to its construction, because many opposed the expansion of foreign economic and political influence, the development of a modern rail network was an early and farsighted goal of the government after the Meiji Restoration (1868). The first streetcar line was constructed in Kyōto in 1891 and used the electricity from the country’s first power station. In subsequent years Japan developed extensive intraurban and suburban railroad systems; the period between the two World Wars in particular was one during which many railroad lines to the suburbs were built to serve the needs of growing numbers of middle-income people. In 1927 the first subway was built in Tokyo’s downtown district, and over time it was expanded into one of the most extensive systems in the world. Subways subsequently were built in most of Japan’s largest cities.
The mainstay of the country’s extensive passenger rail network is the Japan Railways (JR) Group of companies that was formed in 1987 when the state-run Japan National Railways (JNR) was privatized. The jewel of the JR Group’s operations is the high-speed Shinkansen (“New Trunk Line”). The first trains began operations in 1964 on the New Tōkaidō Line, named for the Tōkaidō, the ancient highway between Kyōto and Tokyo, which provides frequent service on an electrified double-track route between Tokyo and Ōsaka. This original Shinkansen line subsequently was extended by lines westward to Fukuoka on Kyushu and northward to Hachinohe in far northern Honshu; branchlines also have been built to several cities on Honshu, and part of a line that eventually will link Fukuoka and Kagoshima on Kyushu has been completed. In order to compete with growing passenger air transport, speeds on the Shinkansen lines have been increased. In addition, the JR Group has conducted extensive research and development on high-speed train operations utilizing magnetic levitation and propulsion.
There are dozens of other private railway companies operating outside the JR Group. Most of them are long-established regional operators of commuter train service and members of larger conglomerates engaged in diverse businesses. Congestion on commuter rail transport has remained a serious problem within the large cities. Although these commuter trains are renowned for their cleanliness, punctuality, and safety, most are extremely crowded during rush hours, with some trains carrying many more than the number of passengers for which they were designed. Services have been gradually expanded to cope with the high demand.
Port facilities
Japan is one of the world’s principal seagoing countries and has one of the world’s largest merchant fleets. Although total annual shipping to and from Japan has continued to rise, the Japanese shipping sector has declined steadily since the 1970s, both in terms of cargo tonnage hauled and number of ships. Shipowners have been forced to streamline operations and scrap ships in order to cut rising operating costs. As a result, foreign charters and ships of foreign registry have risen in use.
Japan has engaged in seafaring since early times, but large modern trading ports were not developed until the second half of the 19th century, after the country had reopened to foreign trade following a period of near isolation from the rest of the world. The first of these, Yokohama and Kōbe, remain Japan’s leading trade entrepôts, the former being the outport of Tokyo and the latter the outport for Ōsaka and Kyōto. Other important modern ports include Chiba, Nagoya, Kawasaki, Kita-Kyūshū, Mizushima, and Sakai.
Air transport
Before World War II, air transportation in Japan was considerably restricted, but, since the foundation of Japan Airlines (JAL), commercial air travel to both domestic and international destinations has become commonplace and widespread. Despite competition by railways, especially the Shinkansen, the volume of domestic air transport has continued to increase. In addition to JAL, the country’s other major airline is All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., and there are several smaller carriers.
All metropolitan areas in Japan are connected by air routes. Tokyo is the main center of the country’s domestic and international air travel, followed by Ōsaka. Other major airports are in Nagoya, Sapporo, and Fukuoka. The growth in air travel has severely strained the country’s airport capacity, despite the addition of new airports on artificial islands near Ōsaka (1994), Nagoya (2005) and Kōbe (2006) and expansion at existing facilities in Tokyo and Ōsaka.
Telecommunications
The Japanese networks of telecommunications and of postal services are among the best and most sophisticated in the world. The hundreds of islands, as well as the remotest villages deep in the mountains, are effectively linked by these services. Japan is now a world leader in the use of advanced telecommunications, including satellite and fiber-optic transmission networks. Per capita telephone ownership is high; although the number of landlines has steadily declined since the late 1990s, mobile-phone subscriptions have soared. The use of personal computers and connections to the Internet have become nearly universal throughout the country.
The government began privatizing the telecommunications industry in the mid-1980s, starting with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), provider of domestic telecommunications services. NTT became one of the largest private firms in the world, but in 1999 it was broken up into a number of subsidiary companies under the name NTT Group. Also at that time the monopoly on international telecommunications services that long had been held by the semipublic Kokusai Denshin Denwa (KDD) was lifted; KDD subsequently was wholly privatized, and, after a series of mergers, was renamed KDDI Corporation. A number of other private telecommunications companies also operate in the country.
