![]() The prospect of expelling Germany from the region and taking control themselves was enough to entice Japan to join the fight against Germany, making the Great War a global one in 1914. Capitalizing on the murder of two German missionaries, the country attacked and invaded the city of Qingdao in 1897, establishing what amounted to a German colony in Shandong province. ![]() ![]() Germany also used military force to insert itself into east Asian affairs. And the downhill slide didn’t end with losing the war a subsequent series of treaties divvied up chunks of China between Russia and Japan, a continuation of the creation of European concessions like Hong Kong or the French settlement in Shanghai. But losing the First Sino-Japanese War to Japan in 1895 put an end to that. Under the rule of the Qing Dynasty, China was the most powerful nation in the East for nearly three centuries. While China never sent troops into battle, its involvement in World War I was influential-and had impacts that stretched far beyond the war, going on to shape the country's future indelibly. ![]() ![]() Both Japan and China actually declared war on Germany in hopes of gaining regional dominance. While the Pacific theater was a major and well-known battleground of World War II, it may come as a surprise that Asian nations played a role in World War I. Chinese laborers comprised the largest non-European workforce during World War I, and were tasked with everything from digging trenches to manning factories. ![]()
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