community, Chinatowns developed in all the major cities along the west coast. Increased trade and World War II The rise of the Japanese economy also benefited the region as the ability to trade across the Pacific continued to show its great potential. However, only a few decades later, Japan would become a major threat. During World War II, there were few attacks against North America, but the occasional Japanese submarine lurked off the shores. Japan tried to damage the region by sending over thousands of Fu-Go balloon bombs in an attempt to light forest fires. These were generally ineffective; a few landed in either Canada or the United States but they caused no great destruction. More destructive was the internment of ethnic Japanese, who were expropriated and sent into internal exile merely for their descent. Post-war period (1945–present) The post-war years would be ones of great prosperity and growth on the west coast of North America. The quick reemergence of Japan and its stunning growth over the next decades meant great wealth for the west coast ports. Japan became the second largest trading partner of both Canada and the United States, and this trade was almost entirely based in the west coast (the United States and Canada are each other's largest trading partners). Later the other Asian economies would add to this trade. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, the primary extractive activities of logging, mining, and fishing remained the central industries. California became a center of entertainment, aerospace engineering, and electronics. Following Alaska's admission to the Union in 1959, military spending, the development of Cook Inlet oil industry, and rebuilding after the 1964 earthquake fueled the state's economic growth in the 1960s. Unlike other areas of the United States, the western economies were not based upon manufacturing and the great deindustrialization of the 1970s and 1980s did little to hurt the region—creating an imbalance between rapid growth in the west and stagnation or decline in the east. During this period, the west coast departed from positions held in the FDR years and moved toward the direction of conservatism with the population favoring lower taxes. In the United States, this manifested itself in support for the Republican Party, especially for the two Republican California-based presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. In British Columbia, the right wing Social Credit Party governed for over thirty years. Nonetheless, the great port cities of San Francisco