Well, Rome and Egypt were just two famous examples I could think of, and I'm no means suggesting they represent the whole Europe. (And Egypt isn't even that much West. Do "Western people" consider Egypt as one of them?)
By the way, I wouldn't recommend including Ancient China in Japan's history: at least don fire retardant suit, because frankly that sounds like an efficient way to offend Chinese and Japanese people at the same time.
To expand on the shared history between China and Japan:
China was the superpower of ancient Asia, exerting significant influence on neighboring regions, and exporting its writing system, as well as science and technology to neighboring regions. As a result, approximately 60% of the words found in a Japanese dictionary are of Chinese origin (this becomes closer to 20% when you weight for usage).
Informatively, the Japanese word for China is 中国, or central country.
Additionally, the nature of the Japanese writing system means that any literate Japanese speaker would recognize the symbols in 中国 (China) mean "middle" and "country", and the symbols in 漢字 (kanji) mean "China" and "character".
That's the Chinese word for China too, which reinforces our point. The Japanese word for Japan has a Chinese origin too (land of the rising sun, to the east of China.)
I think most Western people don't consider ancient Egypt to be directly part of their history. The Romans, definitely. Many of the words in your comment and mine are hardly changed from Latin.
By the way, I wouldn't recommend including Ancient China in Japan's history: at least don fire retardant suit, because frankly that sounds like an efficient way to offend Chinese and Japanese people at the same time.