“The War in the Pacific started in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria.”
True, but we didn’t get involved until Pearl Harbor. And the pretext for that invasion was a trading problem with Japan as I recall. Most of Asia still hates the Japanese for their barbarism.
“we didn’t get involved until Pearl Harbor. And the pretext for that invasion was a trading problem with Japan as I recall.”
The Japanese faced sanctions from America, because of their invasion, and massive war crimes in Manchuria. They were dependent on oil imports from the USA, and decided to seize other territories with oil (Dutch West Indies), before sanctions were imposed.
There is no replacement that China can militarily seize, to sell their cargo ships full of trinkets for hundreds of billions in hard currency.
They might lash out, out of anger/to save face (likely through surrogates), but there is no military option to prevent the the economic impact (and potentially high additional costs to trying). So it is different in that respect.
Right after the War, the "Blame America for dropping the bomb" meme was in full swing.
Some reporter(s) went around the world, asking if we were bad people for dropping the bomb.
When they got to Asia, the reply was usually "Why did you drop only two?"