This isn't comparable at all. The territorial expansion was always difficult to sustain and grew from a ravenous, irrational ethnonationalist political culture and the need for oil and other industrializing resources. China's mode of imperialism is inherently based on China's geography and centralized bureaucracy. There is no analogue of the Emperor being both absolutely powerful and removed from day to day decision making. There's not much analogue to the ethnonationalism angle either, their apparent persecution of the Uighurs stems from internal social control, not fueling a war machine, and they've adopted the soviet multinational state. The CCP is much more politically & economically competent and geographically stable than Japan was leading into WWII. The idea of japan attacking pearl harbor was arguably inevitable, but the idea of china doing that is beyond ridiculous.

He's probably just drawing the comparison as a warning. Because when it comes down to it, the CCP has developed a ethnonationalism of it's own. And that's a powerful thing when the rest of the world is actively trying to shed their identity and become multiculti.