Why did Japan attack China in World War 2?

Answer 1

The reason for Japan attacking China is that Japan has little Natural Resources on the island. It was formed by volcanoes. Japan attacked China to get China's natural resources to fund Japan's economy.

AnswerJapan had imperial ambitions, the same as those held by Russia, England, France, the Dutch, and the USA - when it came to the Far East.

Japan being geographically located there, they felt this was their territory to exploit, similar to the way the USA feels about the Carribean (see Monroe Doctine).

Japan was also a resource poor nation with an industrious, expansionist people. It was only natural that they look to the mainland of Asia for new space to occupy. The war with Russia in the early 1900's gave Japan an opportunity to expand into Manchuria, technically a part of China but only loosely controlled.

Once Manchuria (and neighboring Korea) were fully in their control, around 1930+/-, Japan began pushing into China proper. By 1934 this was a full blown war with huge resources being devoted to the conflict. The war was brutally fought with much slaughter of civilians involved. Gradually it seemed Japan was gaining control of more and more of China and it appeared inevitable that they would eventually conquer the whole country.

Japan's tactics for the most part was to occupy the major industrial and population centers, leaving much of the small village dominated countryside unmolested. In these areas two groups of Chinese began to assert influence. The largest was the Nationalist group, with loose democratic ideals and some tie to the USA they were considered by most westerners to be the recognized government of China.

The second group was the Communist movement with strong ties to the Soviets. They were a much smaller and weaker group in the 1930's.

Japan exploited the division in the Chinese people between Nationalist and Communist to their advantage.

As Japan made more and more progress towards conquering China, with the above noted abuses, they were criticized by western powers, including the USA and Germany. Entire books are devoted to just one such instance, the Rape of Nanking. This interior city was the Nationalist capital. Once the Japanese penetrated to it and conquered it, they went on a rampage of rape, murder, and arson.

Eventually such abuses led to the USA organizing with the British and Dutch to freeze all financial assets of the Japanese in those nations possession. Since over 95% of Japan's oil supplies came from these three nations (or their colonies), Japan was forced to choose: either stop the war in China and withdraw from their decades long conquests or fight the USA. They chose to attack the USA at Hawaii December 1941.

In the Pacific the Japanese had great success for a year or so but ultimately the US Navy and supporting forces crushed them.

In China, the war was put on hold for a year or two. But, as the Americans approached Japan proper, Japan began pulling back troops from outlying possessions. These men were thrown into the China conflict, and in 1944 a great offensive was conducted. This achieved huge success and nearly destroyed the Nationalist Chinese military.

However, events in Europe would overtake the Japanese success in China.

In May 1945 Germany collapsed. The Soviets then moved huge forces with heavy armor to the Manchurian border. There, in mid 1945, they launched an attack (Japan and the Soviets had been at peace for the entire war up to now).

The Japanese were routed. The Soviets then took the vast amounts of captured Japanese arms (light tanks, small arms, medium artillery), and turned it over to their Chinese Communist partners. The combination of these new arms along with the devastating attacks in 1944 by the Japanese, doomed the Nationalist movement. The Nationalists were forced to flee the mainland and move to Formosa.

As of 2006, the Communists remain in control of mainland China. Formosa island has transitioned from military rule to democracy as an independent nation. Eventually the mainland Chinese hope to reunite the country.

AnswerThe Japanese were trying to build a larger empire. War is usually about either religion or grabbing territory. The Japanese were building an empire and the emperor of Japan was almost considered a "God", and as such it almost qualifies as a religious war.

Answer 2

Prior to as well as during World War II, Japan occupied significant portions of China, with various offensives and other action taken with the aim of subjugating China as a whole. Japan did so for the sake of expanding its own empire while also taking control of the material resources found within China.

Answer 3

Japan was generally unsatisfied with the international order that emerged in the 1920's from the chaos of WW I. The Japanese felt that, as allies of the victorious powers, Japan should have been accorded more respect and been given more say in the division of spoils. Britain, France, The United States, and to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union, were seen as conspiring against Japan in political and economic matters to prevent Japan from achieving major world power status. The destabilization of China was viewed by the Japanese as an opportunity for Japan to carve out a sphere of influence in Asia that would confer both economic autarky, and an unassailable political/military hegemony.

But the Soviet Union was also intent on expanding it's influence into northern Asia, and Japan saw this as a direct threat in an area held to be part of Japan's natural theater of destiny (much as Americans saw western North America as it's "manifest destiny"). Moreover, the United States, aided by Great Britain, was asserting the right to have equal trading rights in China (the Open Door Policy), which conflicted with Japan's view of China as her "natural sphere of interest". Japan saw this as more evidence that the US, Great Britain, and other powers were conspiring to rob Japan of it's rightful place in the world.

Germany, of course, was highly dissatisfied with the European order because of what she viewed as the inequities of the Versailles treaty, and then there was Mussolini in Italy, intent on rebuilding the Roman empire in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The policies of these three countries tended to cause them to feel isolated from the rest of the nations of the world, so it was natural that they had similar views on foreign policy goals. All three countries had specifically rejected truly democratic forms of government and evolved an authoritarian mindset. Germany and Japan also had similar perceptions regarding territorial expansion, and the desirability of "racial purity" in a nationalistic homeland. Italian nationalism as fostered by the Fascists dovetailed nicely with ideas of racial purity although all three countries differed as to which race should be in control. The Japanese military did, however, genuinely admire the German military for it's supposed efficiency and ruthlessness, and professed a feeling of professional kinship for the Germany Army. And the Soviet Union had antagonized both Germany and Japan with it's mission of spreading communism, which both countries viewed as an alien political philosophy.

Having said that, however, ultimate German and Japanese objectives were not convergent. Japan wanted to dominate Asia, and Germany wanted to dominate Europe, but there was no agreement on where the border lines should ultimately be drawn between them. The logical goal of their respective political/national philosophies was ultimately world domination and that would have eventually resulted in a war between them, had the Axis prevailed.

In the shorter term, however, Japan did not really mind if Hitler dominated Europe, and Hitler would have been content to let Japan rule Asia. Neither cared to extend itself to aid the other unless it could see a clear advantage for itself. Each saw the other as an ally of convenience; Japan hoped to use the Tri- Partite Pact to force the US to act more cautiously, though in reality, it had the opposite result. Germany hoped to use Japan to squeeze Great Britain and the Soviet Union in Asia. In essence, Germany, Japan, and Italy saw themselves as "have-not" nations fighting to rectify the imbalance between themselves and the "have" nations (Britain, France, Soviet Union).

Answer 4

japan's idea was to scare the US out of joining the war. but all they did as a Japanese admiral once said "All we did was to to wake a sleeping giant".