China is a huge country, full of important resources and extensive farmlands, a huge population, and an important strategic and commercial position. This made it a desirable objective for expansion to European colonial powers, but also, to the rising Japanese Empire. Within China itself, revolutions, civil wars and warlordism plagued the nation as different factions fought to become the ultimate ruler of the country. So today, we return to East Asia to cover the divided state of the Chinese people and the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.