Abstract
At the end of the XIXth century, the dominant position of European powers and of the United States in the Far East remained unmistakable. In fact, the European powers occupied Indochina and shared the occupation of China. Asia remained a stifled continent. But at the end of the century, Japan, which had recently launched the Muji revolution, appeared to be on the way of modernisation. Japan realized a huge economic and political modernisation based on the imitation of western countries. This country became an important economic and political regional force in Far East Asia. With the increasing of power comes the will of domination and economic and military expansion as a kind of reinforcement of this power. So in the first years of the XXth century, Japan, proud of its modernisation, began to rival the European in Asia by claiming an area of influence. As European powers, Japan was interesting by its giant neighbour: China in order to demonstrate its serious power. In fact, this country is politically weak but rich in natural resources: the perfect prey. From 1900 to the 1920's, Japan began its expansion in the archipelagos of the Pacific but remained in front of the door of China that was a European influence area. However, in the 1930's, Japan felt powerful enough to widen its area of influence in Asia and began to threat China. These following years are very important in the understanding of current event, as the recent strains between China and Japan shows. In fact, the Japanese expansionism led to a conflict between the two countries in the 1930's that remains a source of strain today by the manipulation of the memory in each country. In order to be more familiar with these current strains , I've chosen to deal with this part of far east history that is forgotten by westerns. I will wonder how this Japanese expansionism manifested itself in the 1930's. Firstly, we will analyse the reasons, the motivations and the first foot of this expansionism (1930-1935). Then we will see how this will of power faced resistance in China and reached to a war that definitely impressed Asian minds (1935-1939).
