ABSTRACT
By 1937 armed clashes between the Japanese and Chinese troops at Lugouqiao, or the Marco Polo Bridge outside Beijing, had escalated into all-out war between China and Japan. Japan's imperialist attempt to turn North China into a second Manchukuo led to the full-scale military confrontation between these two East Asian countries. From 1937 to 1945, more than 600 million East Asian people took part in the Asian-Pacific War, about one-third of the world total involved in WWII. A total of twenty-nine million individuals were mobilized for military service on both sides, including twelve million Japanese, eleven million Chinese, and four million Korean soldiers. Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and its war with Britain and the Netherlands broadened the conflict into a general Pacific war and severely strained its capability to conduct offensive operations in China.
