Right, I would agree that the concessions Japan made to the US weren't "bad" for Japan, although BPS is almost certainly right that that's how China views them.

In reality it just meant that the timing of the long, painful adjustment every investment-led economy that fails to rebalance in time (i.e. essentially all of them) must undergo was dictated roughly by the US (the Plaza Accords). Of course, the longer you wait to adjust, the more painful it is (because the more of your economic capacity gets wasted, accumulating for many more years the more you delay), so you can't really say that the US causing the stopping of bridges to nowhere and the imperial palace being valued higher than CA were "bad" for Japan.

Clyde, on Japanese economic performance, also have seen the adjustments for inflation/pop growth, as well as Krugman's observations on household growth being decent while corporate went down (i.e. rebalancing). One number I can't reconcile with the whole "Japan has done decently" revisionism though is Japan's global share of GDP, which was like 17 or 19 or something in 1990, but is now around 6 if I'm not mistaken, whereas the US has held steady at at 23 or 25? The US population has increased by only 80% whereas GDP tripled so simple population growth can't explain it (and the fact that the US held steady means the "it was China's growing share that caused Japan's decline" doesn't work since it didn't affect the US. Must be something unique to Japan).