why japan has little natural resources of industrial goods
Economy of Japan A mountainous, volcanic island country, Japan has inadequate natural resources to support its growing economy and large population, and therefore exports goods in which it has a comparative advantage such as engineering-oriented, research and development-led industrial products in exchange for the import of raw materials and petroleum. Japan is among the top-three importers for agricultural products in the world next to the European Union and United States in total volume for covering of its own domestic agricultural consumption.[73] Japan is the world's largest single national importer of fish and fishery products.[74][75][76][77][78] Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market[79][80] is the largest wholesale market for primary products in Japan, including the renowned Tsukiji fish market.[81][82] Japanese whaling, ostensibly for research purposes, has been sued as illegal under international law.
Sakoku Japan traded at this time with five entities, through four "gateways". The largest was the private Chinese trade at Nagasaki (who also traded with the Ryūkyū Kingdom), where also the Dutch East India Company was permitted to operate. The Matsumae clan domain in Hokkaidō (then called Ezo) traded with the Ainu people. Through the Sō clan daimyō of Tsushima, there were relations with Joseon-dynasty Korea. Ryūkyū, a semi-independent kingdom for nearly all of the Edo period, was controlled by the Shimazu family daimyō of Satsuma Domain. Tashiro Kazui has shown that trade between Japan and these entities was divided into two kinds: Group A in which he places China and the Dutch, "whose relations fell under the direct jurisdiction of the Bakufu at Nagasaki" and Group B, represented by the Korean Kingdom and the Ryūkyū Kingdom, "who dealt with Tsushima (the Sō clan) and Satsuma (the Shimazu clan) domains respectively".[2]