 The road to World War II began with increased territorial ambitions among the Japanese leaders as well as internal chaos within China. Japan had for a long time aimed at controlling Northeastern China through strategic control of Korea and Port Arthur. However, the Wilsonian post-World War I treaties prevented such a violation of sovereignty. As such, the Japanese occupation of China was delayed indefinitely. Yet the Japanese economy was stronger than ever by capitalizing on the lack of competition from war-torn Europe. Japan continued to integrate Korea and Taiwan into the empire by building road infrastructure and factories. Though these developments were seen as a natural economic investment they were also means to arm Japan’s outer colonies for war. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had seemingly vanquished the Russian threat to the North. Though the war was officially a stalemate, it caused significant unrest in the Russian Empire; the tensions would last until the Russian Empire collapsed during World War I. Yet, the Soviet Union quickly regained the threat of the defunct Empire. Japan faced pressure to invade Manchuria now when the Soviet Union was still weak. Luckily for the island nation, geopolitics would be in its favor. By 1930, the Republic of China was in open civil war against the communists. Sensing an opportunity to directly control the resource-rich Manchuria, Japan invaded the region from Korea on September, 1931. Five months later, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established with former-emperor Puyi as head of state. Chinese and Japanese forces continued to fight in Northern China until 1935 when Japan expelled the Chinese Nationalist forces in Inner Mongolia. Japan escalated to a full-scale invasion by July 7, 1937 which would become the Second Sino-Japanese War. The goal was to build a buffer region in East Asia to halt the threat of Soviet Invasion. However, the war proved to be militarily draining to Japan. A war that was expected to end within a year had continued with no end in sight. Chinese Nationalists and Communists had made an unexpected truce, and in 1939 the Chinese forces actually counterattacked to a stalemate. Though weak, China had a nationalistic vigor to fight Japan unlike the previous spout between the two nations. Where the previous war lasted just more than a year, the second round bled into the larger worldwide conflict that would be the undoing of the Japanese Empire. 
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