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| 23 August 1914 (declared war on Germany) |
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| 2 dreadnoughts, 16 battleships, 4 battle-cruisers, 20 cruisers (various classes), 55 destroyers, 56 torpedo boats, 17 submarines (1914). Japan's navy was the fourth largest in the world. |
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Japan emerged as a major world power after humiliating Russia in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Its territorial interests lay exclusively in the Far East and Pacific, and it used the war as an excuse to annex German colonies in the region (Tsingtao and the Marshall, Caroline and Marianas islands).
Japan attempted to reduce China to colonial status and to establish itself as the dominant power there when it submitted its 21 Demands in January 1915. |
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