Second sino-Japanese war/WW2: July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a war mainly between China and Japan and was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. The war had a major snowballing effect and was one of the main causes for war during WW2 in Asia. The cause of this war was a slow build up that consisted of small, localized engagements between Japan and China called "incidents" and also major battles such as the Battle of Shanghai that ended up as victories for Japan for the most part. However, America began to aid China in 1942 after Japan's invasion of Pearl Harbor. Japan and China came to a bitter stalemate and in 1945 China was even able to take some land back. Due to the Allied forces bombing as revenge for Pearl Harbor, Japan eventually surrendered on September 2, 1945. They also withdrew their occupational troops in China and surrendered on September 9, 1945. The Allied forces agreed that Japan needed some sort of punishment so they gave China all of the Chinese land that had been annexed by Japan in the Cairo Conference of 1943. The defeat for Japan went on to show a shift in power between China and Japan and shows a major contrast from the Meiji period where Japan was the winning side and China was the losing side.
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