Is Japan an intellectual country ?

[Maciamo]

Japan's strength has always been emulating great cultures,Japanese have never surpassed their cultural masters to this day unlike US could leap frogged Western Europe post WW 2 as the leader of modern industrial world in innovations.

Do you mean that the UA were more innovative than Western Europe since the end of WWII ? First of all, you should check where scientists and inventors in the US come from (many are European, working in the US because it is better paid). Do not confuse people working in the USA and US citizen. Then if we look at really important post-WWII inventions like the audio tape, the walkman, the video tape, the CD, the CD-ROM, contact lenses, etc., they are all European inventions. The only two major post-WWII American inventions I can think of are the microwave oven and the photocopier. In fact, the USA's most inventive period was from its independence to WWI. => see great inventions by country and chronological order

So, what exactly is the difference between "inventive science" and "engineering"?

Engineering is putting in practice the laws of sciences. It's mostly a matter of financial means...

All those inventions were made at least 80 years ago! At that time Japan was far behind the West in scientific knowledge, but that is hardly relevant when discussing Japanese inventiveness today.

I don't think that Japan 80 or 100 years ago was most scientifically backward than Western countries 200, 300 or 400 years ago. Yet, Western countries did invent such things as the mechanical clock, the thermometer and barometer, the microscope or the steam engine over 300 years ago. How comes than even in the 20th century Japan, with more scientfic knowledge and a bigger population and economic power than the whole West combined 300 years ago, didn't come out with more notable inventions ? I can only think of the quartz watch, invented by Seiko in 1969, and the Minidisk (already almost obsolete) invented by Sony in 1991.

Maciamo claims that since inventions such as cars, trains, telephones and television where not made in Japan, Japanese people are not good at making inventions. That is ridiculous! All those inventions were made at least 80 years ago! At that time Japan was far behind the West in scientific knowledge, but that is hardly relevant when discussing Japanese inventiveness today.
Actually, Japan did invent the CD player, and they made the first commercial videocassette recorder.

This is incorrect. Philips, a Dutch company invented both the CD player and the videocassette recorder. However, Sony did work with Philips to develop the CD-ROM.