Japan attacked other asian nations to imitate UK and US, and defend against UK and US. Japan until mid 1800s was happily doing their own thing, and not caring

Japan attacked other asian nations to imitate UK and US, and defend against UK and US. Japan until mid 1800s was happily doing their own thing, and not caring for their neighbours, suddenly they had US metal ships on their docks, and the mighty China falling to UK. Their solution was outright imitate what western powers was doing, in several aspects (even clothes, mannerisms and cultural trends were copied), with the most important one being to act imperialistic, invade weak countries, and try to build the most strong military that you could, using resources from all the colonies as needed. Japan was only following a bad example set by the western powers, and trying to not become China.