The Japanese went into Manchuria in 1931 and tried to establish a couple of other puppet states in northern China in the mid-1930's before the 1937 invasion. That might have been different if there'd been no depression, as Japan had been taking steps toward democracy in the 1920's.
Economically speaking, I'd say the biggest issue for Imperial Japan is breaking up huge rural landholdings. Too many people were farming tiny, unproductive plots of land. The young men who grew up on these farms lead lives of desperate poverty, making many of them all too susceptible to the lure of ultranationalism during their mandatory stint in the army.
The Depression actually wasn't as terrible in Japan as it was elsewhere, mostly thanks to truly huge levels of military (Kenysian-esque) spending. More than the Great Depression itself, I would say it was the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff that needs to be avoided. After that passed, the Militarists were able to convince many people of Japan's (supposed) need to seize resource-rich lands, to avoid being cut off. Without the tarrif, the goal of autarky should remain just a fringe theory.
The other benefit of no S-M Tarriff is that it should give the industrialists something to do. The zaibatsu leaders/families hold much of the real political power in this time period. In OTL, they ended up siding with the Militarists (just as far too many old Junkers and industrialists did in Germany) because the market for consumer goods dried up, and the government represented the only real way to stimulate demand. They profited handsomely from the great military build-up of the 30s in Japan.
However, I believe that the Zaibatsu are fundamentally a conservative group. They are on top in the Empire of Japan, and they don't want to do anything that might jeopardize their position. Historically, they backed the Militarist's play because they felt like they had no choice. If there is no tarriff in the US, then they do have a choice. They can simply sell consumer goods into the US market. In fact, this might be a boom time for Japanese goods in the US. With so many people on reduced budgets, you might see a lot of people try to save money by moving to cheaper Japanese substitutes. Of course, it was fear of this very thing that let the tarriff pass so easily in the first place.
Sorry if this is all somewhat poorly written. I am fighting off a bad cold atm, and my thoughts are somewhat muddled.