Italy had a much more complete national industry and a modern armed force including Air and Naval.
It had uniformed and trained division led by garbage.
China was a 6th rate nation that still bound children’s feet and killed girls when they were born and was living in the 18th century. They had not any naval vessels, nor any airplanes, nor tanks or anything but a few pieces of artillery.
They had to buy German helmets because they cant make their own, and were barely trained and had to rely on foreigners exclusively to have any organization and defend against the Japanese who themselves were on the same level as Italy.
And you know the Japanese totally dominated China and it would have been the same if Italy was in its place, except that Italy was boxed in against too many civilized nations that were not going to just roll over. Japan had a clean table to pick and choose inept territories to conquer and face no opposition to its new order in the east.
Italians where fighting the Soviet Army, the British Army and the American Army and Japan fought trash Chinese units that folded worse than anything the Soviets had in any period of the war.
No sir… Italy was 10 times the nation China was except China was never conquered because frankly it was not worth the trouble for Japan to deal with too many more hungry mouths to feed not to mention they weren’t even doing that. Japan was making a sausage machine out of the Chinese army and China had to resort to hit and run attacks and avoid a real military confrontation.
That does not qualify for an Axis and Allies major player. Do you want to push around a few infantry pieces? Gee what fun…
