The most serious obstacle to japan’s goal of becoming an industrial power was its

a. long history of isolationism

b. small, mostly rural, population

c. democratic political system

d. lack of nonrenewable resources

Nonrenewable resources are characterized by the fact that once extracted from the earth, they are gone, and hence there is no new resources to replace them.

In this context, Japan has a serious obstacle with the lack of this kind of resources. This country imports great amounts of fossil fuel (oil, gas) and radioactive material, such as uranium for the nuclear energy resources. Nevertheless, after the nuclear disaster on 2011, people began to show opposition to the nuclear fission energy.

This means Japan has a huge challenge in its goal of becoming an industrial power. On the other hand, although the country lacks of these materials and have to import them, they create products with the materials imported and then sell them back to other countries.