Question

What territories did Japan control in 1914? Why would having control of territory on the mainland be useful to the Japanese military in the 1930s?

Answer 1

In 1914, Japan controlled the Japanese Archipelago, the Korean peninsula, and the island of Taiwan. It also had control over the southern half of the Sakhalin Peninsula.

Japan's presence in mainland territory of Asia allowed it to extract raw materials and labor power from this places, to trade more easily with the surrounding areas, and these areas also served it as a base for further territorial expansion, which the country would engage in in the following two decades and until World War II.