Ever since the Plaza Accord, Japan's troubles seem to have continued, with ten, twenty, or even thirty years of stagnation in economic development. So much so that soon after the new century, China's GDP was surpassed by China, and it became the third in the millennium. Recently, there has been information that Japan's position as the third oldest is not guaranteed, and it will be surpassed by Germany, which has become the sick man of Europe. Germany is expected to continue its glory as the third millennium. And this change is really dazzling and unexpected.
Now, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun has published an article entitled "South Korea's Scientific Research Strength Is Surpassing Japan's," which is a wake-up call for Japan, which is a technology-based country. Because, according to a 2022 survey on academics** by a research institute under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, South Korea surpassed Japan in the world ranking in terms of quality and ranked among the top 10. In 2000, South Korea ranked 14th (the average of the previous and previous three years), and since then it has been ranked 12th to 14th until 2017, and in 2019 it jumped to 10th place, surpassing Japan, and most recently in 2020.
This result is actually not surprising, according to some data, South Korea's R&D spending reached about 102 trillion won in 2021, ranking fifth after the United States, China, Japan and Germany, and the ratio to GDP is 493%, second only to Israel, in the second place in the world. People use money to make money, and what kind of input there will be what kind of output. Clearly, Japan wants to invest more in R&D.
On the other hand, Japan has always boasted of being a country based on technology, and there are many Nobel laureates in the natural sciences category. However, economic development does not seem to be going well, which of course has been deliberately suppressed by the Plaza Accord, and the business model of some Japanese companies seems to be criticized. The main reason is that they lack a rigorous scientific attitude, and even giant companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel have been counterfeiting for a long time. Every once in a while, you can see the leaders of these companies come out to apologize and apologize, and their attitude seems to be very sincere, and then they should continue to fake.
And despite the great strides in scientific research, South Korea is more concerned about the Nobel Prize. Every autumn when the Nobel Prize season rolls around, there is a lot of concern in South Korea that there are still no winners in the natural sciences. It is surprising that there are few voices optimistic about the country's research capacity. This also shows that South Korea is not only willing to invest in scientific research, but also has a positive attitude towards scientific research. There is reason to believe that South Korea's Nobel laureate in the natural sciences category will surely appear.
So, as some Japanese ** have said, Japan has a lot to learn from South Korea.