I regard it as a distinction without a difference. Six million people are dead because of Japan's actions. Without intervention, that number would have continued to climb.
But I think it is very productive to look very closely at the exact rhetoric that caused murderous excesses of WWII with a view toward prevention.
After all, both Germany and Japan were not very unusual in the generations before the war. And are today among the most charmingly pacifist countries on the planet.
But somewhere in the 1930s their leadership whipped their people into a murderous frenzy using what looks like different rhetoric (and with absurdly primitive media technology too). It would be informative to know exactly how and that I suggest requires looking closely at the details of the propaganda.
The Nazis were planning to kill hundreds of millions of people. It's not a distinction without a difference. The difference is enormous.
Incidentally, what do you think was going to happen as the Germans conquered China from the West? The Germans and Japanese were destined to come to blows even if they'd destroyed the allies.