1922 February 6 Japan ratifies the Nine-Power Treaty and the Washington Naval Treaty, commencing the era of Japan’s liberal internationalist foreign policy.
1923 September 1 The Great Kanto Earthquake and the ensuing fire destroy much of Tokyo.
1926 December 25 Yoshihito dies and Crown Prince Hirohito becomes the emperor.
1929 October 29 Black Tuesday marks the beginning of the Great Depression.
1930 January 21 The London Naval Conference begins.
November 4 Prime Minister Hamaguchi Osachi is gravely wounded by an ultranationalist for supporting Japan’s ratification of the London Naval Treaty.
1931 September 18 The Kwantung Army launches the Manchurian Incident, a Japanese invasion of northeastern China, after blowing up a railway line near Mukden and blaming the act on the Chinese.
September 24 Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro’s cabinet condones the military insubordination by accepting the Kwantung Army’s takeover of the Manchurian province of Jilin.
1932 March 1 The establishment of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state with nominal Chinese leaders, is proclaimed by the Kwantung Army.
October 2 The Lytton Commission issues its report condemning the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
1933 January 28 The Kwantung Army occupies Rehe, a buffer province between Manchukuo and China (in today’s northern Hebei Province), with a view to establishing a stronghold in North China.
February 24 Matsuoka Yosuke, Japan’s ambassador plenipotentiary, announces his country’s intention to withdraw from the League of Nations over its adoption of the Lytton Report.
May 31 Japan successfully pressures the Guomindang (a.k.a. Kuomintang, often referred to as the Chinese Nationalist Party) leader Chiang Kai-shek to agree to the Tanggu Truce, creating a demilitarized zone in eastern Hebei, near Manchukuo’s borders.
1935 June Japanese pressures on Chiang Kai-shek increase, prompting him to withdraw his troops from Hebei, and Chahar, Inner Mongolia, enabling Japan to secure its sphere of influence around Manchukuo.
1936 February 26 A coup attempt in Tokyo instigated by young army officers almost succeeds, but Hirohito’s decisive intervention quells it.
December 12 Chiang Kai-shek is kidnapped by the anti-Japanese warlord Zhang Xueliang, who forces Chiang to reassess his policy, eventually making him agree to join a united front against Japan, in cooperation with Chinese Communists.
1937 June 4 Konoe Fumimaro becomes prime minister.
July 7 The China War begins with a Sino-Japanese clash at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing.
December 13 Japanese forces conquer the Guomindang capital, Nanjing, followed by weeks of mass killing and rape.
1938 January 16 Prime Minister Konoe declares that Japan will not “deal with” Chiang Kai-shek.
March 24 The National Mobilization Law is passed in the Diet, followed by a series of emergency centralization measures to carry out Japan’s effective war mobilization.
July 1 The United States begins its “moral embargo” on aircraft and aircraft parts against Japan.
November 3 Konoe announces that Japan’s aim in the war against China is to help create a “New East Asian Order.”
1939 January 5 Konoe’s cabinet resigns.
February 10 The Japanese occupation of Hainan Island begins.
July 26 The United States announces its intention to abrogate the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Japan.
