Context: After Donald Trump extended the U.S. sanctions against Belarus, originally imposed in 2006, for another year, Belarusian state media began discussing the impact of those restrictions on the country’s economic and technological development. Japan was used as an example in the broadcast of how sanctions can supposedly lead to a technological leap.
On May 21, national security expert Alyaksandr Tsishcanka said on the First National Channel of Belarusian Radio that sanctions and international isolation could stimulate the development of domestic technologies. He said that the restrictions on China have prompted the country to accelerate the development of its own technological solutions. He also cited Japan as a historical example.
“Take Japan, for example. It purchased — subscribed to — Soviet magazines for children, such as Modelist-Konstruktor, Yuny Tekhnik, and Nauka i Tekhnika. Why? To gain access to even small pieces of technological ideas, perspectives, approaches, and possibilities. And, at least in part, it was on that basis that Japan managed to build its technological advantage,” Alyaksandr Tsishcanko claimed.
Japan’s economic and technological development, later known as the Japanese economic miracle, began in the mid-1950s — long after World War II had ended. Yuny Tekhnik began publication only in 1956, while Modelist-Konstruktor first appeared in 1962. Nauka i Tekhnika ceased publication in 1941 and did not resume until the 1960s. In other words, the Japanese industry had already made significant progress by the time the magazines mentioned in the broadcast were established.
Japan itself offers a different explanation for its technological growth. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology reports that, after the war, the country relied on the rapid adoption of advanced Western technology. To this end, state structures were established to import technology and scientific developments from the United States and Europe.
The idea that the Japanese economic miracle stemmed from Soviet magazines is a long-standing myth. This idea gained further notoriety when the satirical website Panorama published an article about it in 2022. At the time, the online publication ran a mock news story claiming that Japan had erected a monument to Nauka i Zhizn magazine as “the basis of its economic miracle.” Alyaksandr Tsishcanka later retold this satire as a real story.
