let's asume an economic developement for the whole empire like japan had after the war. a japanese empire today would have (if manchuria, korea and taiwan are integrated into the empire):
-population: 335 million (todays numbers, with all the ww2 deaths)
-gdp nominal: ~16 trillion USD
this goes way above great power level.
here's the military spending:
-at 1% military spending like now: 155 billion USD
-at 2% nato spending: 310 billion USD
-at 4% USA spending: 620 billion USD
they could afford a lot of things with that kind of money, the 4% one is virtually the same as the USA, and if it's even slightly militarist it could be even higher.
if it's not in nato/western camp having such a huge force concentration in east asia would make it a gigantic head ache for washington.
you'd need to invent a new category, it's not a great power because its far too big for that, and it's not a superpower because no military bases to project power from.
-population: 335 million (todays numbers, with all the ww2 deaths)
-gdp nominal: ~16 trillion USD
this goes way above great power level.
here's the military spending:
-at 1% military spending like now: 155 billion USD
-at 2% nato spending: 310 billion USD
-at 4% USA spending: 620 billion USD
they could afford a lot of things with that kind of money, the 4% one is virtually the same as the USA, and if it's even slightly militarist it could be even higher.
if it's not in nato/western camp having such a huge force concentration in east asia would make it a gigantic head ache for washington.
you'd need to invent a new category, it's not a great power because its far too big for that, and it's not a superpower because no military bases to project power from.