Japan certainly took up American models when it opened to modernity. Japan clearly too was determined to be strong militarily and otherwise and its victory in the Russo - Japanese War of 1904 - 1905 was a great statement from the Japanese point of view and it certainly made plain Japan's Arrival to take its place amongst the world's leading nations.
However, Japan's development then and most particularly the military course and Emperor Worship and the Cult of the Samurai etc etc and '' what it did to the Chinese people during the 1930'' was / is all determined by its own cultural forces, nothing to do with anything it learned from the West as your post might appear to imply.
