ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses industrial development in China and Japan in the 1930s – especially by using primary data for statistical analysis – in the hope of learning about the similarities and differences in industrial development between the two countries. In 1931, the Japanese launched the “September 18th Incident” to invade Northeast China. In 1932, Manchuria was established, and Japan turned Northeast China into a colony until the end of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945. The data in 1942 are used because the data in 1939 is not good enough. It is noteworthy that North China is different from Northeast China and there were changes in the size of North China and Northeast China in different periods. The comparative analysis shows that there was an obvious gap between Chinese factories and Japanese factories, but this is based on gut feelings, without rigorous analysis.
