Older generations definitely do. It got referenced in a Murakami short story set in the 70s (or 80s maybe) where a couple of Japanese guys vacationing in Hawaii who don’t speak English heard a racist guy go off and said they could pick up on that one word without understanding anything else.
The US used to use that as well but I dunno if younger people would be aware of it these days. There’s an old ee cummings poem that mentions “nipponized” metal.
Nippon still gets used today in names of places or organizations, and the sports chant equivalent of “USA! USA!” is “Nippon cha cha cha!”