Yeah....
You are wrong .
Japan's intentions with East Asia was to extend the living space for Japanese/ install Puppet regimes which would ultimately be subservient to Japan that would help supply raw materials. While the idea that they should be liberated from colonial possession is noble, Can you say for sure that Japan would've treated them with far more respect than Colonialists ?
Do remember that Japan was/is resource poor and these East Asian nations would've to supply raw materials to the Japanese Empire ( similar to how they supplied raw materials to the Colonial nations of Europe) at cheap rates ( even for free it all depended on the whims of Japanese Diet).
The Japanese aggression with China was far more severe because China was the "Empire" before them. China had History behind it. Chinese culture influenced Japanese and other nations around it not the other way around. Eliminating the Chinese people was important so as to assert Japanese supremacy over all of Asia, therefore.
Can you say with absolute certainty that Japan would've wanted a strong China after Japan won the WW2( after "peacefully liberating and protecting China" ) ?
The answer is clear.IF Japan won the WW2 and had its way -
Japan would've oppressed the Chinese ( maybe much worse than the colonialists because of China's previous position in the world stage ), they'd have imposed the Japanese culture and advocated cultural and even racial supremacy of Japanese over all of East Asian cultures, tried to eliminate/oppress Koreans and made East Asian nations mere tributaries with Japan as the center.
In a sense, all of East Asia would be "liberated" from European colonial oppression and loot. But the plight of the people would be much worse.
My reply is coming very late but there is a lot of content but here it is.
In your opening statement, you mixed Japanese expansion in East Asia with the expansion into the colonies of other empires. It is historically a mistake to do blend the two together into making one very bland and generic conclusion. The chain of events are very different between the two.
Korea and Taiwan are deep during the era of empire building by other empires and was purely eat or be eaten sort of world. So any effort in trying to extend some sort of moralistic argument in these cases falls short because of the circumstances going on around. There should be nothing wrong with Japan standing up for itself and not conceding the taking of other territory by powers outside the region.
Coming up next was Manchuria in 1931. Yes, it was Japanese expansion. Surely the Japanese didn't have to take it. But considering other things going on, was it really
that bad of a move? During the late 1910s and 1920s, Manchuria was run by the Fangtian Clique. And Japan supported this clique. The Fangtian Clique formed a natural buffer with the Soviet Union. Japan signed up to the 9 power treaty to respect "China"s borders. So what with the Fangian Clique? They fought in the Chinese Civil War during the warlord era, suffered some major defeats after the leader tried to seize Beijieng. The economy went bad under bad economic policy by the leader. The chief economy advisor abandoned the Fangtian Clique. It completely fell apart by 1928. Seeing an opening, the Soviet Union made some attacks on the remnants in order to reestablish control of a Russian built railway that went across Manchuria from the northwest down to the southeast where Vladivostok was. The KMT was busy in the main body of China proper and so lend no assistance at all against the Soviet excursion. Mind you, it was only 4 years early, in 1925, that the Soviet Union set up a puppet communist regime in Mongolia. So while Japan is setting there, complying with the 9 power treaty to keep the other western powers happy, the Soviet Union is expanding its influence into the area. The Soviet Union wasn't a signatory of the 9 power treaty either by the way. They inserted Chinese communist into China which had to be incorporated into the KMT as part of agreement for getting Soviet aid. A time when the Soviet Comintern was announcing intentions to spread communism all over the world. When all this mentioned, it really doesn't look so surprising that the Japanese would decide to take Manchuria for themselves then. And the invasion of Manchuria was carried out with about only 50,000 troops. Manchuria is a huge area, all taken with just 50,000. Not many casualties on either side really either. And despite the invasion happening 3 years after the total collapse of the Fangtian economy, KMT never moved in. 2 years after the Soviet attack on Manchuria in 1929, no KMT assistance. And again, no KMT assistance when the Japanese invaded. Face it, Manchuria was a sitting duck. Saying all this doesn't go as far as saying Japan was in the right to invade it. But to go as far as saying it was the wrong thing to do after all is known, also seems kind of exaggerated. With all the colonial activities going on in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, the Middle East, all over Africa, was the Japnese invasion of Manchuria really
that bad? Give me a break. What made it "bad" was that it meant possibly a stronger Japan and the countires that have made it on top of the hill (US, Great Britain, lesser extent France and Russia) didn't want more competition so that is why it gets called "bad".
The run up to the start of the second Sino-Japanese war in 1937 was also not so one sided on Japan's fault. The KMT and Chinese communists were busy with their civil war, the great march gets going in 1925, finishes up by Spring 1936, a KMT general makes a secret pact with he Chinese communists in summer 1936 and makes do on that pact by December 1936 in what was called the Xi'an incident in which Chinag Kai-shek's generals kidnapped him and took him before the Chinese communists in order to force Chinag Kai-shek to stop the fight against the Chinese communists under slogans like "Chinese don't fight Chinese" and to instead change focus on starting a war against Japan. Remember, this was December 1936. What Japanese invasion was taking place? There was no major war going on. There was some Japanese activities using collaborators to setup friendly Chinese governance in the border areas around Manchuria. That's it. Chiang Kai-shek was very busy in trying to modernize his forces, getting much advice and equipment from the Germans. He of course did want to get Manchuria when he was ready. But he wanted to finish the communist problem first. So he was forced into stopping the campaign against the communist and started preparing for war against Japan. Does this really sound like an intention for an all out sudden invasion to conquer China by Japan? 7 months later, Chinese and Japanese squabbles happen, the Chinese shoot first at the Marco Polo bridge, thus begins increased hostilities in the northern area. While further south in Shanghai, the Chinese moved their soldiers into Shanghai which was violation of international agreements there. I don't really fault them. So don't get me wrong. The Japanese demanded the Chinese NRA to leave the international area in Shanghai. The Chinese refused. The Chinese then attacked the Japanese positions first and they were the first to go as far as using aircraft to bomb Japanese buildings there, although apparently with some friendly fire bombing. The Chinese strategy was to push the Japanese out soon enough with advantage of surprise to to be quick enough about it to prevent enough time for Japanese reinforcements. Japan made the decision to push to Nanjing because they figured the Chinese were not going to stop. Afterall, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to get Manchuria in the end of it all. So total war has been started, so here it goes, the march towards Nanjiang. So after all that is put out, was it really entirely a Japanese plan and sudden invasion into China? No not really. What really seemed to have happened is that the corrupt KMT was struggling to finish off the Chinese communists after the long march and the Chinese communist successfully diverted KMT attention to Japan. The Chinese communist didn't help very much against Japan. Just enough to use as propaganda tool for their recruitment campaign as KMT bleeds in doing the bulk of the fighting.
By the way, the KMT apparently had some major recruitment issues for the war against Japan:
This was a deadly affair in which men were kidnapped for the army, rounded up indiscriminately by press-gangs or army units among those on the roads or in the towns and villages, or otherwise gathered together. Many men, some the very young and old, were killed resisting or trying to escape. Once collected, they would be roped or chained together and marched, with little food or water, long distances to camp. They often died or were killed along the way, sometimes less than 50 percent reaching camp alive. Then recruit camp was no better, with hospitals resembling Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald.
Part 2 in following post..
