How did Japan occupy China during WWII?

[Winston]

How did Japan occupy China during WWII, when the US can't even occupy Vietnam?

I don't get something. How did Japan occupy such a large country like China during WWII? No one has enough troops to occupy a country that large.

Also, wouldn't Japan have easily lost in a ground war with China, since they would have been outnumbered thousands to one?

If Japan was able to occupy China that easily, then why couldn't the US occupy Vietnam during the Vietnam War?

I guess in Vietnam, the leader of the Vietcong kept moving around in secret, so there was no "king" to capture like in chess to force a surrender.

If so, then why didn't China play the same game and have their leader hide underground or move around in secret, so that Japan could never win?

[Intolerant]

China was divided by warlords and cliques who had their own interests in mind. So Republican china wasn't as united as it was. The reason why Japan occupied much of China is partly due to collaborators. There are quite a few Chinese who went to Germany and sided with the Nazis, but even then, to this day, many Chinese are still friendly towards the Germans.

[zboy1]

How did Japan occupy China during WWII, when the US can't even occupy Vietnam?

I don't get something. How did Japan occupy such a large country like China during WWII? No one has enough troops to occupy a country that large.

Also, wouldn't Japan have easily lost in a ground war with China, since they would have been outnumbered thousands to one?

If Japan was able to occupy China that easily, then why couldn't the US occupy Vietnam during the Vietnam War?

I guess in Vietnam, the leader of the Vietcong kept moving around in secret, so there was no "king" to capture like in chess to force a surrender.

If so, then why didn't China play the same game and have their leader hide underground or move around in secret, so that Japan could never win?

China was weakened greatly by the civil war between the communists and the KMT (Kuomintang--Chinese nationalists loyal to Chiang Kai-shek). That resulted in Japan having a much easier time in invading and conquering China than it would otherwise have been.

[Billy]

compared to the japanese the us were nice guys. they could just kill everybody. they wanted to solf the problem with minimal costs which didn´t worked out. the japanese were badass fascist mofos they did some serious fighting and with brutality you can win easier when you are technologically advanced.

do you think vietnam was stronger than japan? why did japan lose against the us? because the us wanted it bad enough. who the f**k cares for vietnam? us lost 40k soldiers in the vietnam war which means almost nothing.

anyway again a typical winston question. time to read a history book. oh the chinese...

[WiseTruth]

In a nutshell:

1) As others have pointed out, China was terribly weakened and divided during the first half of the 20th century due to civil war and European colonial interests.

2) Japan didn't occupy all of China, nor did it have to. It occupied Manchuria and the area along the eastern coast, where most of major cities and population were.

3) Remember that North Vietnam was a Soviet (and even Chinese) ally. Invading the north would have likely compelled either or both communist giants to step in. Also remember that during the Korean War, after the US had pushed the North Koreans back past the 38th parallel (the dividing line) up towards the Yalu River, China stepped in and fought the US for 2 long years afterward. The US had the lesson of Korea in mind when it was fighting in Vietnam.

[zacb]

Well during the Korean War, the Chinese attacked with shovels. Any questions?

Second, like others said, China, until recently, was strongly divide, and has a history of this.

[gsjackson]

compared to the japanese the us were nice guys. they could just kill everybody. they wanted to solf the problem with minimal costs which didn´t worked out. the japanese were badass fascist mofos they did some serious fighting and with brutality you can win easier when you are technologically advanced.



anyway again a typical winston question. time to read a history book. oh the chinese...

Yes. Read The Rape of Nanking. Lt. Calley and cohorts were like choirboys compared to Japanese occupiers of the '30s. Their military had cultivated a culture of vicious savagery.

And yes, with a lot of his questions Winston does seem like the boy who has been raised in the wild by wolves and wanders into civilization to find his curiosity piqued. The questions seem to come from a complete tabula rasa, wrt human learning.

[WiseTruth]

Yeah, seriously Winston: read a book for a change. You really do come off as kind of a child with these questions.