Tokyo's quick recovery

Prewar Japan had been a major power. The capital city kept their memory of what it was like to be an industrial centre. They still possessed an educated and skilled workforce.

The US forced Japan to surrender its right to a military, causing Japan to allocate its total resources toward civilian activities. When Japan established a national defence force in 1954, the expense was small. When the Korean War broke out, the US procured many of its war supplies from the geographically close Japan, which supercharged Tokyo's recovery.