WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -China’s invasion of Manchuria was its first step toward dominating Japan. After months of fighting in the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill asked for the United States’ assistance, and the U.S. agreed to offer supplies. Ignoring their non-aggression pact, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

Detailed explanation-2: -The First Sino-Japanese War ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, in which China recognized the independence of Korea and ceded Taiwan, the adjoining Pescadores, and the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria to Japan. China also agreed to pay a large indemnity and to give Japan trading privileges on Chinese territory.

Detailed explanation-3: -Japan had possession of roughly 25% of China’s enormous territory and more than a third of its entire population. Beyond its areas of direct control, Japan carried out bombing campaigns, looting, massacres and raids deep into Chinese territory.

Detailed explanation-4: -The notional rulers of China, Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist Kuomintang party, controlled a shrinking area of central and south-west China, fighting the Japanese with a poorly armed and trained army, and sometimes fighting the Chinese communists ensconced in China’s north-west.

Detailed explanation-5: -The conflict is often termed the second Sino-Japanese War, and known in China as the War of Resistance to Japan. There are arguments that the conflict began with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but between 1937 and 1945, China and Japan were at total war.