Today we looked at life in China & Japan between World Wars I & II. The interwar period was a tumultuous time for both Japan and China. As nationalist and militaristic factions slowly gained power in the increasingly modernized Japan, Japanese leaders looked to the Asian continent for territorial acquisition and military glory. Simultaneously, China was incredibly vulnerable, as nearly a century of Western intervention had weakened the Chinese government, and the ensuing civil war between China's nationalists and communists only worsened China's predicament. This made the country susceptible to Japanese aggression, which the West could not afford to do much about during the Great Depression. It would take defeat in WWII to both stop Japanese aggression in China and open up possibilities for the growing Chinese Communist Party.