Stress in Japan? Not that bad.

In this day and age people are stressed and so are countries.  The bottom billion of the world are caught within four traps that are making their life quite stressful, but the country I will explore, Japan seems to have successfully avoided all four of these traps and is not nearly as stressed as the bottom billion. 

Japan does not fall under the conflict trap, however Japan is experiencing external conflict with China and Japan.  Japan and China are currently dealing with a century long dispute over the Diaoyu (Chinesename)/Senkaku (Japanese) islands in the East China Sea.  Both countries claim ownership of these islands and neither side is willing to loosen its grasp on them.  These islands provide many resources such as oil and fishing that makes them valuable to each country.  In response to this conflict, riots are breaking out throughout China where the Chinese are burning Japanese flags and destroying Japanese shops in China.  China is now trying to control large and dangerous anti-Japanese protests, which largely consists of burning down and destroying Japanese factories such as car dealerships, which is an especially big problem since Japan has $12.6 billion of investments in China.  Many protesters from both Japan and China are traveling to the island and trying to declare them either Chinese or Japanese.  To add to this, the Japanese have another dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo (South Korean name)/Takeshima (Japanese name) islands.  Japan is becoming more and more isolated in East Asia as it has territorial disputes with most of its neighbors, however, internally Japan is extremely stable and hasn’t had any notable internal conflict for hundreds of years.

Japan also does not fall under the natural resource trap.  Japan is an industrial country that focuses on motor vehicles and electronic equipment.  Japan is not abundant with natural resources as 21.2% of Japan’s imports are petroleum and natural gas.  Japan also doesn’t feel the same effects of natural resource trap with automotives.  Japan is not fully dependent on the export of motor vehicles and its economy is made up of multiple different industries.  Japan feels no sense of Dutch Disease.  Due to the lack of natural resources Japan has fallen into conflict with countries over the natural resources of neighboring islands.

                Japan is the epitome of the opposite of the landlocked conflict due to the fact that Japan is an island and locked by water on every side.  Japan can tap into world economic growth and trade with whomever Japan wants to.  The infrastructure in Japan is also at a superb standard. 

                Japan’s governing for the most part has been pretty sound.  Recently there were elections that put in place the old government of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party lead by ShinzoAbe, replacing the Democratic Party of Japan.  The LDP plans on shaking off Japan’s economic stagnation and keeping a tough stance with China over the islands in the East China Sea.