1. Pre World War 2: Japan

2. Up until 1853, Japan practiced isolationism for over 200 years
US Commodore Matthew Perry forces to open up trade with the USA.
Treaty of Kanagawa is signed between US and Japan.

3. Japan wanted to join the club
Japan wanted to join the club. The Meiji Emperor Mutsuhito ( ) industrializes

4. Sino-Japanese War (1895) .
Japan joins other industrialized countries in trying to carve up China

5. Russo-Japanese War (1904) Two countries going in different directions.
Japan had industrialized and began to imperialize.

6. And then came Korea (1905)…

7. Japan
Although Japan had a constitution based on democratic principles, by the 1920s the military essentially ran the government. Japan had very limited natural resources and had only begun the process of industrialization in the late 1800s. Like other industrialized nations, Japan needed to secure resources and new markets. In the 1930s, Japan entered a phase of empire-building, using aggressive military action to achieve domination over key regions in Asia.

8. The Invasion of Manchuria and the “Rape of Nanking”
In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, a region of China rich in iron and coal. Although Japan had joined the League of Nations, it withdrew in 1933 after the League publicly condemned the Manchurian invasion. In 1937, Japanese forces took control of the then Chinese capital of Nanking. Between December 1937 and March 1938, the Japanese brutalized and committed atrocities against the city’s residents; many refer to this as the “Rape of Nanking.” The death of thousands of civilians—notably women, children, and the elderly—is now well-documented. Japanese soldiers raped as many as 80,000 women, and it is now estimated that close to 370,000 people died.

9. Locations of Japanese forces in November 1941
Japanese Aggression
General Hideki Tojo
The land war on the continent drew the European powers’ attention away from protecting their colonies in east Asia. Japan took advantage of this opportunity to continue its policy of imperialist expansion. In 1940, Japan launched an initiative known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, claiming it would free the region from European domination. In reality, Japan simply wished to substitute its own colonial rule for that of the Europeans.
President Roosevelt had been alarmed by Japanese expansion in east Asia and the Pacific and took moves to slow Japan’s efforts. In 1940, he ended sales of steel and scrap iron to Japan; after Japan conquered French Indochina in 1941, he cut off oil shipments to Japan and froze Japanese assets in U.S. banks. Both countries realized they were heading down the road to war. Japanese and American diplomats held meetings in 1941 trying to find a way to avoid conflict. Behind the scenes, however, Japan was already planning an attack. General Hideki Tojo, who advocated going to war with the U.S., became Japanese Prime Minister in October In late November, Japan began moving a fleet across the Pacific toward Hawaii.
Locations of Japanese forces in November 1941