Strictly speaking, Japan is first-world. It's a Cold War term. The USA an it's satellites were the first world. The USSR and its satellites were the second world. Everything else (shitholes by coincidence) was third world. >>the only reason that they have it is because the Americans and the Germans were total bros and gave it to them. Usually only the embrace part matters. If all industrial tech had to be invented in the country, the US would fail too. America literally smuggled in UK spies in big hats and trench coats to steal their industrial tech during America's industrialization. >>If not for the USA forcing Japan to open up, if we had left them isolated like the North Sentinelese, would they still be practicing medieval-stage feudalism under a Shogun? Emperor Meiji could have still taken power and modernized the technology, but it would have been significantly less likely.