Question #1e27b

1 Answer
Oct 18, 2017

Well, the way I remember it...

Explanation:

...it was for much the same reason as the big European powers carved out their own colonial empires. Ambitions for imperial prestige, sources for natural resources, markets for products.

An additional factor, arguably, was the peculiar status of the Japanese Army. This seems to have been a state within a state. It seemed to operate according to its own corporate desires, without restriction from its nominal civil authority masters. The autonomy with which it operated is a recurring theme in many of the popularly available histories on this time and place.

The personal ambition of individual Japanese army officers was a significant factor in the sequence of events.