I'll predicate my answer on the Japanese knowledge that actually beating the United States in a prolonged naval conflict was an impossibility.

The Japanese strategy in the Pacific was to isolate Australia, British holdings in SE Asia, and the United States from each other, and hold key islands across the Pacific in order to create defense in depth. The idea behind Pearl Harbor and the offensives of 1942 were to knock the wind out of the USN, grab and hold key objectives, and hope the US sued for peace. With those limited objectives in mind, and early war superiority in naval airpower (the Mitsubishi Zero was king of the sky through about 1943), the Japanese strategy was workable, as long as the US was amenable to terms. Pre-emptive war with the US was a means to secure Japanese holdings and allow them to concentrate on China and Indochina, not to actually beat the Americans.

For awhile after Pearl Harbor, things were awfully tenuous for the Allies in the Pacific Theater. The Royal Navy ceased to be more than a token force after the loss of the Prince of Wales, Repulse, and the carrier Hermes within a few months of Pearl Harbor. And sure the US was already spinning up its war machine, but the loss of the Philippines meant they had no real forward base outside of Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese offensives against Australia had the twofold aim of a) strategic isolation of Australia from the other allies, and b) drawing what remained of the American navy into an ambush at the Battle of the Coral Sea. Thanks to US intelligence efforts, Coral Sea ended in a tactical draw, but a strategic defeat for the Japanese, but even then, the USN had only two operational aircraft carriers left (Lexington was sunk at Coral Sea, Yorktown was badly damaged) to the Japanese four carriers.

A note on the US strategy at this point - capitulation, to my knowledge, was never on the table. Instead, they had to try and avoid the Mahanian decisive sea battles that the Japanese were so fixated on and keep their meager forces alive while the might of US industry played catch-up. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese outgunned and outmaneuvered the Allies at every turn, so avoiding (or exploiting, as at the Battle of Midway) Japanese ambushes was crucial to surviving.

Midway is really where everything changed, and it's not hyperbole to call it the most decisive battle in the history of naval warfare (John Keegan's words, not mine). Breaking the IJN code allowed the US to bide its time and keep from falling into the ambush at Coral Sea, and allowed them to outmaneuver the Japanese at Midway. The US had another surprise up its sleeve: the Yorktown which had been damaged at Coral Sea in May had been put back to sea from the Puget Sound naval yard after only a few weeks of work (and she had work crews still aboard) and was now available for Midway. Where the initial Midway battle plan for the Japanese relied on having 6 carriers available, Coral Sea had reduced that number to 4, and with Yorktown back in the mix, the battle of Midway had near-parity in naval firepower, with the USN advantage being strategic surprise thanks to codebreaking.

Midway delivered the knockout punch the Japanese had always dreamed of, but they were on the receiving end, losing 75% of their deployed carrier force and hundreds of experienced naval aviators. Where the US would take veteran aviators off the line and return them to the US to train the next crop, the Japanese did not have such a training program - when a pilot and crew died, their expertise largely died with them. After Midway, the IJN lost strategic initiative throughout the Pacific, while American industry was chugging away and would eventually quadruple the number of fleet carriers available in the Pacific, along with hundreds of other heavy warships, whereas the Japanese could not afford to replace their losses.

The TL;DR is that the Japanese relied on two assumptions: 1) the US could be cowed into accepting terms, because 2) the Japanese would win an Mahanian decisive naval battle that would destroy the American strategic presence in the Pacific. Neither happened, and when it became a shooting match, industry and thoughtful training won out.

Sauce: John Keegan, The Second World War (2005)

Mark Still, The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War (2014)