A wide range of economic, political, and sociological factors could explain Japan’s imperialistic expansion.
The main factor that could lead to imperialism is the surplus capital in the home country looking for a profitable investment in foreign markets.
Even though imperialism is not useful as a business policy for a whole nation because of his great military and administrative expense, strong organized financial and industrial interests supposed to gain from imperialism find ways to place this expense on the general public.
Imperialism also was seen as the monopoly of capitalism as essential features of imperialism involve the concentration of production and capital into monopolies. Plus, the need for raw material also drove capitalist to acquire colonies.
Moreover nations which looked for their expansion, were seeking to expand their dominion for the sake of ruling.
Another factor could be nationalism, which focuses on maximizing the power, prestige and wealth of a nation.
Japanese imperialism was initially drove by a desire for security in East Asia from China and the Soviet Union and subsequently, in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, a formation of Japanese self-identity that necessitated imperialist practices in an attempt to realize that self-identity. The formation of nationalist attitudes among the Japanese workforce resulted in imperialist ideas such as a “line of sovereignty” and eventually the conception of the Yamato ideology were used to justify the most aggressive forms of Japanese imperialism in East Asia
