Hmm, the comments on Malaya are interesting because I had the opposite experience last night playing as J.
I attacked on J2. I built 1 IC on Kiangsu on J2, and built 1 IC on Malaya on J4, upgrading it to a major IC on J5. On J6 i built enough inf, art and trn there to conquer india on J7.
I had to divide my builds between ground and naval units because the US destroyed a big Jap fleet on US2 off Queensland, although they took big losses as well. Since I didn’t had enough inf to finish the Chinese or deal with the UK, I concentrated in starving the UK down to 4 IPCs and taking out India instead of losing too much time dealing with the Chinese.
It really felt that I didn’t had any better option: I had to send (and lose) 2 transports with INF to fortify the Carolines and take Guam (to prevent US bombers from striking out at transports on the Asian coastline). Overall I was a little short on infantry but the moment I built the IC the UK was as good as dead.