it also isn’t something that was tainted by those evil westerners either and it was good before.

Nah I approach the whole thing from a historical amoral stance since this is all stuff that has happened and can not be changed but can be observed as how it impacts the modern era.

The fault of Japan's change with the Meiji restoration, aka Japan's great opening up to the outside world, is that the new imperial government that arose from the Boshin War reacted in recoil to how vast the world was and how they were a minnow in an ocean of sharks. Their choice to pursue modernization, imperialization and westernization is understandable in context that those who do not oppress are in turn oppressed themselves.