Japanese Politics/Economics Before WW2

Because we are learning about the origins of WW2 in class, I decided to research a bit about the state of Japan's politics and economy prior to the war, mostly because I didn't know much about this topic even though the Japanese were involved significantly in it. As the classroom textbook explains in Chapter 34, before the second world war, Japan was an extremely militant power in Asia, mostly due to the country's needs for natural resources. As a result of this, the Japanese military dominated Korea, Taiwan, and the Chinese region of Manchuria, since they sought the raw materials throughout different countries where Japan had colonies. And even though other countries such as China did not want the Japanese to involve their military in their countries, they were so desperate for oil and rubber that they continued to seize international resources to benefit themselves. However, as an article by the East Asian Institute at Columbia University describes, the Japanese were somewhat forced to do this to an extent in order to survive, mainly because "this was a time when 'free trade' was in disrepute. The great powers not only jealously protected their special economic rights within their colonies and spheres of influence, but sought to bolster their sagging economies through high tariffs, dumping of goods, and other trade manipulation." So just as this article describes, "free trade" or a free international market did not exist throughout the years before WW2, mainly because countries had political and economic ambitions to hold onto their resources and promote domestic success over trade. In consequence, countries relying on trade for economic success such as Japan were stuck in a situation where they either had to desperately find other nations to trade with for raw materials with, or they had to seize these resources internationally. Because Japan was undergoing a major period of militaristic conquest throughout southeast Asia (due to the military taking most of the nation's political power from the government), the Japanese chose to seize other nations' resources in an aggressive and forceful way, promoting their economy and nationalistic ideals. In addition to these drastic trade restrictions hurting the Japanese economy, President Roosevelt of the US put an embargo on oil exports to Japan to restrict their militaristic expansion, which prevented their navy from being able to support itself. So as a result of combined limitations that different countries were putting on Japan, a country that relied heavily on raw material imports, the Japanese were put into a situation where they had to continue expanding and retrieving resources from other countries, which in-turn angered these nations even further. Additionally, prior to WW2, Japan was significantly involved in direct conflicts with other nations, especially the Soviet Union and China. The reason why the Japanese were fighting the USSR was because they were trying to take land in northern areas of China near Manchuria, which bordered Soviet territory and therefore threatened them. However, this conflict was not too significant in comparison to Japanese aggression towards China, since the Soviet Union only influenced Japan to not take more land close to them. Meanwhile, Japan's military was warring with the Chinese over territorial expansion and local raw materials, which ended with the Japanese defeating the Chinese in many regions and then expanding even further into Dutch Indonesia and British Malaysia, where they were able to get control over oil and rubber. So overall, before WW2, Japan was an extremely aggressive, demanding, and desperate country that sought to use its military to gain control over other nation's resources and land for their own economic success. Such drastic expansion was mainly due to conflicts and tensions with other countries, a lack of an international free market, and extremely nationalistic domestic politics. I believe that these factors ended up contributing significantly to the nation's involvement in WW2 and its alliances with fascist countries because throughout the 1930s, the Japanese politics and economy centered around international aggression against the British, Americans, and Soviets. What are some other reasons you all believe that contributed to Japan's involvement in WW2?