Give the reason as to why Japan invaded China.

Japan invaded China chiefly for ECONOMIC REASONS. Her industries were expanding rapidly but her islands were poor in raw materials, so she needed coal, iron and other resources, and markets for her manufactures. Manchuria, rich in minerals, was invaded in 1931 for precisely this purpose.

To this was added the pressure of a growing POPULATION needing living space, and the rise of an aggressive military nationalism which held that Japan should dominate East Asia as a great imperial power.

Two marks, so give the economic motive and one other — population pressure or militarist nationalism. Name MANCHURIA and the year 1931; a general answer about Japanese aggression earns half. The wider significance is worth a closing line: when the League of Nations condemned the invasion but could do nothing, Japan simply walked out of the League in 1933 — and that failure taught Hitler and Mussolini that aggression carried no penalty.