Yes, and in my opinion it's more plausible than the Nazis taking over the Soviet Union.
In the 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek and emergent Chinese nationalism were the only things keeping the fractured Chinese military and political establishment together, and even then that wasn't enough to prevent the fall of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and the neutralization of Beijing and Tianjin. Chiang was also far from universally loved—the communists were actively running an SJW smear campaign against the admittedly corrupt KMT government and didn't, for all their rhetoric, give a damn about unified resistance. During the Xi'an coup in 1936, Mao really wanted to kill Chiang via Zhang Xueliang, but circumstances saved the Generalissimo. Had Chiang died or been removed from power, it is nearly certain that without him to manage the warlords, the entire Nationalist establishment would destroy itself in short order. I think Chiang's successor would have been He Yingqin, and while my knowledge is hazy I am pretty sure he had many rivals.
The Japanese were adept at turning local elites and warlords to their side, and IOTL even got respectable public figures like Wang Jingwei to side with them in hopes of fair cooperation as the Japanese advertised. A string of victories along the Yangtze and swelling numbers of turned warlord troops would make for a shaky but certainly doable set of Japanese tin-pot puppet states.
Resistance would be strong. By 1937, many KMT generals were not just unscrupulous warlords, but men who actually cared for their country and wished it the best. There was an emerging framework of national institutions that fostered patriotism and modern Chinese statehood. I have no doubts that an underground Chinese state, resembling the Polish resistance, would form and gain in influence over the years. The Japanese would be powerless to effectively counter its rise, lacking manpower or logistics to control even most of the rural areas, let alone the western parts of China.
Overall, barring the (improbable) discovery of Manchurian oil, "conquering" China wouldn't solve any of Japan's immediate problems. It would still be shunned by the West and feel the compulsion to seize resources from elsewhere, thus leading to war with the great powers.
In the 1930s, Chiang Kai-shek and emergent Chinese nationalism were the only things keeping the fractured Chinese military and political establishment together, and even then that wasn't enough to prevent the fall of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and the neutralization of Beijing and Tianjin. Chiang was also far from universally loved—the communists were actively running an SJW smear campaign against the admittedly corrupt KMT government and didn't, for all their rhetoric, give a damn about unified resistance. During the Xi'an coup in 1936, Mao really wanted to kill Chiang via Zhang Xueliang, but circumstances saved the Generalissimo. Had Chiang died or been removed from power, it is nearly certain that without him to manage the warlords, the entire Nationalist establishment would destroy itself in short order. I think Chiang's successor would have been He Yingqin, and while my knowledge is hazy I am pretty sure he had many rivals.
The Japanese were adept at turning local elites and warlords to their side, and IOTL even got respectable public figures like Wang Jingwei to side with them in hopes of fair cooperation as the Japanese advertised. A string of victories along the Yangtze and swelling numbers of turned warlord troops would make for a shaky but certainly doable set of Japanese tin-pot puppet states.
Resistance would be strong. By 1937, many KMT generals were not just unscrupulous warlords, but men who actually cared for their country and wished it the best. There was an emerging framework of national institutions that fostered patriotism and modern Chinese statehood. I have no doubts that an underground Chinese state, resembling the Polish resistance, would form and gain in influence over the years. The Japanese would be powerless to effectively counter its rise, lacking manpower or logistics to control even most of the rural areas, let alone the western parts of China.
Overall, barring the (improbable) discovery of Manchurian oil, "conquering" China wouldn't solve any of Japan's immediate problems. It would still be shunned by the West and feel the compulsion to seize resources from elsewhere, thus leading to war with the great powers.