What circumstances or change in overall trends might have lead to Japan avoiding war with America and holding on to it's colonial gains among the Asian islands, only to suffer a series of "Vietnam" like situations in later decades with the US and European powers regaining their old colonial possessions economically rather than militarily, through corporate expansion each time there's a revolutionary republic or the empire has to allow the free market more freedom in order to prevent a revolution?
And what impact might this have on the sociopolitical development of Japan (specifically in relationship to a move towards, or perhaps more accurately back to, liberal democracy; if any; and if not what sort of cultural progression or countercultural movements might take place)?
I kind of have a sort of cyberpunk dystopia Japan of the 1980's in mind, with the usual cyberpunk threat of Japanese corporations replaced with Western corporations; though any more realistic or other interesting variations on this idea are things I'd definitely like to hear about.
Also, what sort of effect would the Cold War have on this rump Co-Prosperity Sphere? Western corporations undermining Japanese authority in the colonial islands on one hand, Soviets stirring up revolutionary sentiments on the other?