What traits of the Japanese and Koreans do you think help them achieve impressive economic success?

The main feature is hard work and the ability to work well in a team, minimalism, for example, in Japan, a high retirement age and short vacations.

Eastern labor discipline has rather deep historical roots – these peoples grew rice, and this requires irrigation facilities and a lot of manual labor, so they had to work a lot, often in mountainous conditions (Japan, Korea, partly China), that is, the creation of terraces.

The first success was achieved by Japan – on the eve of the First World War, and the second time in the 1950s-1960s (Japanese economic miracle). Further – the Chinese in Singapore and Taiwan (1970-1990s), and China itself (rapid economic growth since the 1970s). Well, South Korea, although the DPRK in the 1950s and 1970s also developed quite rapidly.