Japanese-American here. This is revisionism. Japan was absolutely known for low quality products in the past. Probably the best "pop-culture" reference to this is "Back to the Future" when Marty travels back in time to 1955 and shows Doc a Made in Japan product (camera, I think?) Doc says its junk because its Made in Japan, but Marty sees it as high quality because its from the 80s.
Thats correct but it's hard to argue that it isn't a postwar blip in Japanese history as many companies of renown have lineages spanning both sides of the war, producing high quality product, anyways it feels like more than your median country.
Obviously quite literally survivorship bias, but since that's literal, it counts.
Japanese cameras became popular with pros during the Korean War precisely because they used high-quality materials and had great quality control. A good Leica was still better at the time, but you were much more likely to get a good Nikon.