Why is Japan so successful?

Question:

Japan is so rich and successful but why? They don't have many natural resources and they have lots of natural disasters and things so how can they remain so rich?

Answer:

Deep in our mind set, we know this archipelagos is not a paradise where we can rest idle.
we have all sorts of element like volcanoes, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis.
we also have to compete with advanced countries in high technologies and emerging countries in commodity goods to survive as a nation and to support import of indispensable items like oil, food, ion and so forth. There is no room for us to lead a carefree life but we have to be alert and diligent.
For the past 20 or 30 years, Japan seems to have lost some steam in the world arena due to its decreasing and aging population, higher evaluation of our currency, flooding import of cheap goods from emerging countries and slow adjustment to the globalization of its industries.
But we have enormous resources of hardworking, highly disciplined people, high technologies and competitive industrial basis. Encouraging signs for the renaissance of Japan are emerging across the society and I'm confident the next decade is quite different from the past ones.