The Rise of Imperial Japan

 Since Japan had become an imperial power in the nineteenth century beginning their conquest of mainland Asia in 1910 when they invaded Korea off the Chinese in the First Sino-Japanese war. This defeat led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty in China and soon China became engulfed in civil war as war lords competed for power and different ideologies fought for control. Japan began taking more land from the various war lords in the north creating the Manchuria puppet state. On the 7th of July 1937 Japan launched a full scale invasion of China after a small incident at the Marco Polo Bridge quickly escalated. Japan was able to take the major cities and the war soon descended into a guerilla war. Mao Zedong led a force of Communist guerillas against the Japanese but they found it difficult to cooperate with the Nationalist Chinese.

The rest of the world was disgusted by the idea of Japanese expansion. America embargoed them depriving the Japanese army of much needed oil supplies. It became clear to the Japanese that they would have to expand in order to survive. After the USSR beat them in two short wars in 1938 and 1939 over some border disputes, Japan looked south to the resource rich British and Dutch colonies in the area. They also signed a non aggression pact with the USSR who were afraid of a German attack. Japan aspired to own all of Asia and completely expel all European influence.