It was, said a delighted former civil servant with a mischievous sparkle in his eye, a great day for Japan. “We have finally caught up with Taiwan and South Korea.”

Like those two countries, Japan’s electorate has, for the first time since 1955, peacefully transferred power from one political entity to another. Sunday’s landslide victory by the Democratic Party of Japan has toppled the hegemonic rule of the Liberal Democratic party, whose dominance of power had rivalled even that of China’s Communist party.