Necessary but not sufficient. That put them in a position to open up; they still needed a competent leader who could understand their situation and take advantage of it, which didn't happen until Deng.
If you go back further, the precursor to Japanese development was the 'black ships' incident - which was taken as no less than a full US invasion.Japan was a developed industrial power well before the US got involved...
On a political - not to mention personal - level, interactions between Eastern and Western cultures often involve the Western party putting themselves in a position high on the social hierarchy, without even realizing it. I see these crossed expectations all the time in my interactions with various Asians. The Asian side thinks that the Westerners were going to be more responsible with their power, while the Westerners think the Asians really were that enthusiastic about whatever.
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