I did not read more than the Subject line but answering the subjects line question:

I think they will change on there own pace and either succed or fail, like every other culture.

I think Japan has learned by now that closing one self up to the world is an bad idea since people using cannons showed up at the front door and came crashing through the gates without breaking a sweat.

Well i think they have proven behond doubt by now that they examine what the rest of the world does carefully and use what they think works.

You do not become second biggest industrial force in the world with an population who does not like its country, this is something you can not enforce, every manager in the world will tell you that to get exellent results you need highly motivated workers who do there job because they want to, enforcing work gets you only to substandard.

How Japan will do in the future i do not know and i think no one can but for my opinion they have better chances than many other countries to succed.

Giving them advice as an western foreigner will fail for the simple reason that what we do does not translate into Japanese culture at all, the foundations are to different for that.

They do see what works in the west and find there on way to archieve this, out of there own culture and the understanding how they have to reform there culture to archieve the desired result, nothing someone not of this culture can do for them.

I can teach you how to make cabinets, how to make GOOD ones you have to learn for yourself, because i can not teach you more than how to use tools, how to treat wood and how to connect one piece of wood to the other.

So i can teach you how to make a box and how to add fancy curves to it, but making something that people want to own is something you need to discover for yourself, everything else would mean you just make copies of my stuff, something in todays world an CnC can do, it has to come from within yourself, you can get teached a craft, the art making your stuff special has to come from within yourself, same for countries.

One can do something and others see it and think "Yes, good idea" but how to make this idea work for them self people as cultures have to explore how to make it, not how to copie it.

The UdSSR failed at that, the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan does fail at it.

The best way to change an societie is exposure to the rest of the world, but that works only as long it is not enforced, you can deliver information only to the doorstep, picking it up and bringing it in is something only the owner of the house can do.

</rant>

<huff> sorry but this is something i feel rather strong about.