Switzerland came in close behind Japan for the timeliness and convenience of its trains, but received high praise for its unbeatable Alpine scenery.
The question is how much weight the US will put behind Japan.
The list got a lot of publicity, mainly because of the relatively poor ranking given the U.S. Our "overall performance" was 37th, behind Japan, most of western Europe and such nations as Colombia and Morocco.
In the 1980s, Americans felt themselves lagging behind "Japan as Number One, " the title of a 1979 business best-seller.
The current corporate tax rate of the United States, according to a study by the Tax Foundation in March 2011, was the second highest in the world behind only Japan (and Japan was planning on lowering their corporate tax rate).
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MetLife is currently the second largest global insurance company in Japan behind Prudential Financial.
The island runs a large trade surplus, and its foreign reserves are the world's fourth largest, behind China, Japan, and Russia.
The U.S. has collected 13 wrestling medals over the last three Summer Olympics, third most behind Russia and Japan.
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Historically, free cashflow is a good predictor in Japan of business investment, which, behind exports, has helped drive Japan's six-year recovery.
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In 1996, the Blue Wave won the Japan Series behind a stable of unorthodox players and a legendary manager, Ohgi Akira, who encouraged individualism.
The UK remains the third biggest market for music behind the US and Japan - and the number of new albums sent to retailers in July, August and September 2003 reached an all-time high of 230 million.
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Japan is the second largest single-country economy, with China close behind (and expected to pass Japan this year).
Japan ranks second behind the United States in financial contributions to the United Nations.
We invented solar technology, but we've fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it.
Canada are the other best third place finishers and qualify for the last eight behind Sweden and World Champions Japan.
Japan lags well behind America and Europe in restructuring its banking sector.
In this respect, Japan is lagging behind globally recognized best practices.
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Elsewhere, Senegal and China played out a goalless draw in an international friendly in Harbin while Junichi Inamoto's late strike helped Japan come from behind to claim a 4-3 victory over Ghana in an entertaining friendly in Utrecht.
Over the last 20 years, China has become one of the biggest economies on earth, surpassing Japan and one step behind the United States.
If Japan does not stand behind the loans it has made to Southeast Asia, then the spillover from Asia to the U.S. could become more serious, says Clough.
China is the world's third-largest net importer of oil, behind the U.S. and Japan.
Behind the United States, China and Japan operate the second- and third-largest economies in the world, respectively.
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Many observers expect mobile telehealth to take off in mobile-loving South Korea and Japan, but to lag behind in America, where consumers are more likely to raise privacy concerns.
Already the fifth-largest market in the world (behind the U.S., Japan, Germany and Britain), China PC sales have been growing at 30% per year, fast enough for the country to surpass Japan by 2002.
As a result of such rigidities, Japan's labor productivity lags behind the OECD average and has been variously measured at between 60% to 70% of the U.S. level, though Japanese work longer hours.
China now boasts the fourth-highest total in the world, behind only the U.S., Japan, and Germany.
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Japan have been no strangers to going behind in this tournament, and they duly struck back nine minutes before the break.
Unlike many revisionists, he embraces the post-war order, wants an internationalist role for Japan, and does not see bogeymen behind every tree.
The century-old company, whose founder invented the first mechanical pencil and designed one of the first radio sets in Japan, has in recent years fallen behind nimbler rivals, such as South Korea's Samsung.
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