People do not put in as much effort into researching Japan as the other Axis members, and as such they write the same OTL insanity without understanding how Japan arrived at that point.
This is what I've been trying to say all along.
See, that's the type of double standard that brought up this discussion. With the Nazis we usually don't go "oh, but they committed war crimes, that doesn't excuse what they did," but rather "they had this kind of Weltanschauung due to this particular history and belief, so that was their logic." Why must the war crime issue always come up when discussing how people are utterly ignorant of why Japan went the path they did and just jump to "anarchic illogical loonies"?
That is where I wondered if racism of some kind, even if it's subtle plays a role.
Since Mao Zedong enacted changes that caused the death of at least 25 million people but probably much more, it's pretty fair to call him reckless.
My example with the Sino-Soviet Split is more that in what passes for the historiography of the split you have 3 viewpoints. It started from ideology, is started from a competition to be number one in the second world, or it was a clash of personality. The problem is if we take that historiography at face value there's an underlying set of assumptions that look to portray Mao as irrational, devious, and perhaps above all the main instigator of the split for not being acceptive of the changes from Khruschev to Stalin. It can allow for Mao to be painted as some kind of power hungry pseudo-Stalinist lunatic, who seems a step or two away from the Yellow Peril as well.
In relation to Imperial Japan, it's along similar lines. Pearl Harbour is portrayed as a devious sneak attack, but more importantly as a borderline insane gamble of a smaller nation versus a larger one. When in fact was more a part of a calculated strategy to buy time, your mileage might vary on how good of an idea it was. Pearl Habor was plan B when negotiations for lifting the Oil Embargo fell flat. There a book called Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War by Akira Iriye that talked about how the Japanese thought going into deciding to attack Pearl Harbor or not.
No @Obergruppenführer Smith is not ignoring the characterization of the Japanese as "insane" but arguing against it. Unless you're saying that because the Japanese did evil things it automatically makes their actions irrational. There's a big between defending against portrayal of Imperial Japan as willing to attack anyone and anything.The truly abusive parts of the Holodomor, say? Yes, we would make that characterization, a point you've been persistently ignoring.
I'm sorry, but you'll have to explain this to me: how does invading a country 30 times your size with an 8-1 population advantage makes Japan sane. It how declaring war on a country with 20 times your industrial output and 3 times your population is a smart move.
It's simple, your either misread or don't know Japan's intentions. Pearl Habour was done to buy time, to allow the Japanese to seize the Dutch East Indies for their resources use those to continue the fight in China, win in China, and hold on to their gains and from there try and gain a peace settlement. Invading the U.S, hell attacking the U.S was never a long term goal of Japan until the Oil Embargo made it the only option that seemed available.