I still say we don't talk nearly enough about Japan's role historically within imperialism, and its continued prominence in western-led imperialism. You can absolutely say the same things about the Japanese as you can about Europeans, and in some cases, even more, but the zeitgeist is still so black-and-white, and so racially-focused, that we just imagine that they must be a historically targeted group by whites, just like other Asians.
Japan was never colonized, but it did colonize large swaths of East Asia in brutal ways that make European settlers look humane. Their immediate goal in all cases was terror and genocide. At least Americans acknowledge (or at least used to) the crimes against humanity that they've committed, rather than pretending they simply never happened. And while the western world now is engaging in reaction today, Japan has nothing really to react to, because despite what it tries to show off to the world, it has never stopped being an intentional ethnostate, has never stopped discriminating against minorities within its borders, and has never tried to curtail the power of its ruling class. They're already effectively what MAGA wants the US to be, and once they get their wish, there's no doubt in my mind that Japan will become a major co-aggressor as American imperialism shifts its focus more intensely to East Asia.
