"The Japanese were hated by Filipino's, too. And a number of others. However, independence movements in Burma, India, Viet Nam and some other countries thought they had a better chance with Japan than with the Western colonial powers."

Regardless if they were independence movements [or a few old guys in a coffee shop] or if they were national governments, they would have been ill informed if they had thought they had better chance with European powers or Japan than compared to a mostly isolationist America.

If they had special psychic powers or had special channel with gods that knew the future, they might have known that America would be later transformed into a power that actually did more than make fairly vapid "international gestures" and try to impose weak embargoes.