Why the downvotes? This is a serious issue. Developer salaries are low in Japan and the field does not attract a lot of smart people. Traditional engineering is respected, while developers are (still) seen as the "computer guys in the basement".
The downvotes are probably because it's phrased like a race-essentialist statement, a type of statement that many people are very wary of (rightly, imo!). As you point out, there's a good chance it wasn't intended that way.
