The correct answer is “economic exploitation of its neighbors”
To avoid European influence, Japan invaded China with cruel violence and took advantage of the Chinese weak situation to fulfill their power ambitions in Asia. China was a place rich with the metal such as iron and coal and because of that, it was an area of interest to Japan.
With this, Japan gained raw materials and lands and the security of the country, later China had a long growth with Japanese rule. Chinese people, on the other hand, suffered a lot on the hands of the Japanese and some parts of culture collapsed.
The detail that best supports the thesis that Japan benefited from imperialism is the last statement: Economic exploitation of its neighbors.
Although the rest of the statements are also true, Japan had a selfish point of view and their political and economic ideas were considered by them ahead of asian values, the key in this subject is that they wanted to explode China's territory and take a benefit from it.
During the 19th century, Japan and Russia controlled and exploded a part of China's territory: the northeast, the region of Manchuria.
All these interferences (from Japan and Russia, but also from Britain, France Holland and America) provoked reactions of nationalist nature, highlighting the radical reformers starring in the Hundred Days' uprising in 1898, and the Popular Revolt of the Boxers between 1900 and 1901.
China's situation ended in 1911 with a revolution that killed the Empire and established a Republic.
