In World War II, victory came when the Empire of Japan surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri.

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Toyota has 11% of our market, 34, 000 employees in the U.S. (the heart of the empire is still in Japan) and a grand total of 65 U.S. ex-workers on retirement.

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But there is, without question, some real value in this man's empire and it belies the notion that Japan's economy is stagnant and hostile to entrepreneurs.

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The first occasion demonstrated to the world that Japan had arrived as a legitimate military power with its stunning defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5.

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Their growing empire of boutiques now includes an outpost in Manhattan's West Village and two more in Japan: one in Tokyo's Daikanyama district, the other, which opened just last week, in Kobe.

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