| | The first took place in 1894-95, sparked by the jostling of [[China]] and [[Japan]] for power in [[Korea]]. China was comprehensively defeated, and Japan established a protectorate over Korea and annexed [[Taiwan]] and [[Port Arthur]], although was forced to give up Port Arthur under international pressure. Japan also occupied the naval base of [[Weihaiwei]] from 1895 to 1898, when it was leased from China by the [[United Kingdom]]. China's humiliating defeat gave impetus to the reform movement, and led to the [[Hundred Days]] reforms of 1898. | | The first took place in 1894-95, sparked by the jostling of [[China]] and [[Japan]] for power in [[Korea]]. China was comprehensively defeated, and Japan established a protectorate over Korea and annexed [[Taiwan]] and [[Port Arthur]], although was forced to give up Port Arthur under international pressure. Japan also occupied the naval base of [[Weihaiwei]] from 1895 to 1898, when it was leased from China by the [[United Kingdom]]. China's humiliating defeat gave impetus to the reform movement, and led to the [[Hundred Days]] reforms of 1898. |
| − | The second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, after several years of Japanese provocations and encroachments on China, the most serious of these being the so-called [[Mukden Incident]] of 1931, which led to the Japanese occupation of [[Manchuria]]. On 7 July 1937 a skirmish between Japanese and Chinese troops at Lugouqiao ('[[Marco Polo]] Bridge'), near Beijing, led to a full scale Japanese invasion. By 1938 the main coastal cities, as well as Beijing, Nanjing and Wuhan, were in Japanese hands, and the Chinese government was resisting from a temporary capital at [[Chongqing]]. Although fighting was sometimes fierce, and took on a guerrilla character, little territorial change took place in the subsequent years until a major Japanese offensive in south-central China in 1944 led to the fall of [[Changsha]] and much of [[Hunan]] province. Japanese forces still held much of China at the conclusion of the war in August 1945. | + | The second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, after several years of Japanese provocations and encroachments on China, the most serious of these being the so-called [[Mukden Incident]] of 1931, which led to the Japanese occupation of [[Manchuria]]. On 7 July 1937 a skirmish between Japanese and Chinese troops at Lugouqiao ('[[Marco Polo]] Bridge'), near Beijing, led to a full scale Japanese invasion. By 1938 the main coastal cities, as well as Beijing, Nanjing and Wuhan, were in Japanese hands, and the Chinese government was resisting from a temporary capital at [[Chongqing]]. Although fighting was sometimes fierce, and took on a guerrilla character, little territorial change took place in the subsequent years until a major Japanese offensive in south-central China in 1944 led to the fall of [[Changsha]] and much of [[Hunan]] province. Japanese forces still held much of [[China]] at the conclusion of the war in August 1945. |