Look at the triple intervention in OTL. Europeans weren't a priori kind to Japan meddling in China like one of them, nevermind going after European colonies (and Christian majority ones, no less).
Maybe if you have Japan getting an understanding with Russia, rather than Britain (so you have to get rid of Nick II or his assasination attempt in Japan), and they basically use the Philippines as a way to take the Japanese's attention from China and Korea - not much different from how Britain used Spain to get the US' attention off Canada. Of course this has considerable knock-on effects, making the British distrusting of the Japanese, and far less amicable to Russia in the lead up to *WWI (no agreement to divide Persia in spheres of influence, more paranoia about India being threatened, maybe continued efforts to prop up the Ottomans but there is the recent Bulgarian and Armenian massacres to take into account).
Uh. Get rid of Kaiser Bill and you might have a German-British approach!