SOURCE 11

• Reasons for Japan's expansion

  • Impacted by Great Depression and lacked natural resources
  • Believed that by expanding in SouthEast Asia and Pacific can gain resources such as oil, rubber, and iron
  • Greater East Asia Co-prosperity sphere – Asian nations led by Japan
  • Nationalism
  • Treaty of Versailles did not fully address Japan’s territorial ambitions and claims leading to dissatisfaction
  • Saw the growing Western powers in Asia as a threat
• Japan invaded Manchuria (North Eastern China), beginning of Japan’s expansion


  1931
• Nanjing Massacre when Japan invaded central China - killed suspected Chinese soldiers, massacred families living outside the Safety Zone, and raped tens of thousands of women


  13 December 1937 into 1938
• Japan attacked Mongolia, the ally of the SSR (Soviet Union) – small battle with several thousand and was the Japanese first loss, and decided to not attack the Europeans and attack South and South East Asia


  1939
• Japan invaded French Indochina – Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to secure resources and set towards South East Asia


  1940-1941
• Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and Singapore, the War in the Pacific begins


  1941: 7 December
• Japan bombed and attacked the American colony of the Philippines and Japan attacked Malaysia, Dutch-East Indies

  1941: 8 December
• Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere


  Japanese concept of a unified and self-sufficient bloc in the Asia-Pacific region under Japanese control