Refer to the passage. "From the outbreak of the Mukden Incident till the end of the war the successive Japanese Governments refused to acknowledge that the hostilities in China constituted a war. They persistently called it an ‘Incident.’ With this as an excuse, the military authorities persistently asserted that the rules of war did not apply in the conduct of the hostilities.

This war was envisaged by Japan's military leaders as a punitive war, which was being fought to punish the people of China for their refusal to acknowledge the superiority and leadership of the Japanese race and to cooperate with Japan. These military leaders intended to make the war so brutal and savage in all its consequences as to break the will of the Chinese people to resist.

As the Southern movement advanced to cut off aid to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the Chief-of-Staff of the Central China Expeditionary Force on 24 July 1939 sent an estimate of the situation to War Minister ITAGAKI. In that estimate of the situation, he said: ‘The Army Air Force should carry out attacks upon strategic points in the hinterland in order to terrorize the enemy forces and civilians, and so develop among them an anti-war, pacifist tendency. What we expect of offensive operations against the interior is the mental terror they will create among the enemy forces and civilians rather than the material damage inflicted direct upon enemy personnel and equipment. We will wait and see them falling into nervous prostration in an excess of terror and madly starting anti-Chiang and pacifist movements.’”

Judgment in the trial of Japan’s leadership for war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1946

How did the causes of the Holocaust differ from the causes of Japanese atrocities?

The Holocaust was caused by scapegoating minorities for society’s problems, while the Japanese crimes were caused by imperialism.
The secrecy of early ethnic purges in Germany helped enable the Holocaust, while the public terror of Japanese crimes inspired more crimes.
The most fundamental cause of the Holocaust was belief in a national destiny, while the most fundamental cause of Japanese war crimes was military policy.
The Holocaust was caused by an acknowledged war in Poland, while the Japanese crimes were caused by the refusal to acknowledge that a state of war existed.