Having dealt with Japanese technology companies for over 20 years, I think I know their strengths and weaknesses. The "radiation therapy" of Hiroshima & Nagasaki turned Samurai Japan into a docile vassal of the US and Japanese industry was reconfigured to cater to the US consumer market based on products and technologies originally developed and marketed within the US ( e,g. steel, auto, consumer electronics ). For 5 decades the Japanese did these very well and Japanese brands gradually displaced US pioneers like RCA, GM etc. Japan excelled in efficient manufacturing through continuous improvement based on known Physics but did not excel on fundamental / disruptive research to match their growing wealth. The result was Japanese products based on known technologies ( LCD TV, combustion engine ) became too costly for US consumers whose relative purchase power was falling in part due to success of Japanese manufacturing. So US marketers of brands moved mfg. to China and So. Korea caught up with Japan in Semiconductor & Electronics technologies. Now Samsung of Korea has become several times larger than all the well known Japanese electronics brands put together. Over the last 3 years electronics mfg on Japan has shrunk to half !
Signature Japanese products like Bullet Trains are simply too expensive ( $ 20 to $ 30 million / km ) for India unless they are given away by Japan. Even then their safety at 200 to 300 kmph will remain a concern when accidents are so frequent and fatal in Indian trains chugging along at just 80 kmph. Educated and westernized upper caste Indians may think of themselves as world class but the lower 90 % of Indians who do the actual work of running the country have been kept relatively backward like sub-Sahara Africans by the upper 10 %. Those Indians simply do not have the culture of precision, sincerity and pride required to operate Bullet trains.
For the last 70 years India has followed an unrealistic top - down model of development pushed by inexperienced yet arrogant politicians like Nehru, supported by charlatan Economists, mismanaged by incompetent bureaucrats & MBAs. Recently this has degenerated into crony capitalism with businessmen from new PM Mody's home state cornering lion's share of public assets like oil reserves and mobile spectrum.
Instead of entertaining Mody's wish list for 100 Smart Cities which will surely turn into Potemkin Villages, PM Abe should be bold enough to tell him that development begins at the individual level and with the simplest of activities e,g. personal cleanliness, punctuality and respect for neighbors. These are the qualities that have made Japan great. Japan should help India first address these issues in its million backward villages where a billion people live in medieval backwardness & filth. Only then should Japan relocate to India some of its manufacturing for heavy industries and consumer products to take advantage of its lower cost labor for export to Africa and counter China's expansion into Africa.
