The United States was solidly isolationist in the 1940's. We were determined not to get sucked into overseas wars, ever again. Even Franklin Roosevelt, perhaps the strongest US president of the 20th century, could not move the country toward intervention. He tried, and he could not do it.
Nothing the Japanese were doing in China and Southeast Asia could have caused America to do more than send them diplomatic nastygrams. No way were we going to do anything of a military nature about Japanese aggression in China. After the Germans defeated and occupied the Netherlands and France in 1940, the French and Dutch colonies were pretty much up for grabs. Japan could have kept on going after the American oil embargo by getting oil from the Dutch East Indies where the crude oil was so pure that it could be pumped into the tanks of warships without any refining.
Type 1 less provocative method, send a fleet of tankers with a strong (like really strong) naval escort and some bank guys with a good strong checkbook. Send the bankers ashore to negotiate a sale of oil.
Type 2 more provocative method, send a fleet and land marines and take over the place. We would have screamed and cried and threatened to hold our breath, but we would not have intervened militarily to save a Dutch colony. We did not approve of colonies. We still don't.
As long as the Japanese did not mess with American possessions like the Philippines or the US Navy, they could have done pretty much anything they liked in China and Indonesia. Japan's diplomats and intel people failed to clue the Japanese government into the real state of affairs in America at the time. (Or the government failed to listen to their diplomats and intel people.)
As it was, Pearl Harbor total destroyed American isolationism, we got good and mad, smashed the Nazis, and nuked Japan, after sending her fleet to the bottom. Total defeat and occupation. War outcomes don't get much worse than that.
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