The Manchurian Incident and the Second Sino-Japanese War

Japanese economic and strategic interests in Manchuria stretched back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and Japan's control of the South Manchuria Railway Company gave it a durable base of regional influence. On the night of September 18, 1931, officers of the Kwantung Army, acting entirely on their own initiative, blew up a section of railway track near Mukden and falsely blamed the sabotage on Chinese forces as a pretext for military intervention. The Kwantung Army then rapidly occupied Manchuria over the following months without prior approval from the cabinet in Tokyo, which found itself forced to ratify the fait accompli after the fact. In February-March 1932, Japan proclaimed the puppet state of Manchukuo, installing Puyi, the last Qing emperor, as its nominal head of state while real control remained with the Kwantung Army. The League of Nations' Lytton Report of 1932 condemned the Japanese aggression, but Japan rejected its conclusions and withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933, an episode that badly weakened the collective security system and consolidated the army's autonomous power over civilian control.