#Headline Creation Challenge ##头条讲真的#
In fact, if you want to answer simply, this picture is enough.
The snake swallows the crocodile and chokes to death.
Specifically, Japan is an island country with a small area of only 378,000 square kilometers. However, before modern times, Hokkaido was almost undeveloped for a long time (Matsumae Keihiro objected, saying that the Matsumae domain was also important).
Subtracting more than 80,000 square kilometers of Hokkaido, the Japanese mainland Mishima is not even 300,000 square kilometers, which is an area that can be arrogant in China, that is, the era of the Warring States Seven Heroes (around 400 BC); in Europe, that is, before and after the Treaty of Verdun in 843, it can be a great power, taking advantage of the fall of Western Rome and the division of Charlemagne's empire, it can make a show of its might, once France and Russia and Austria-Hungary rise, Japan still has to play on the side, and its status is equivalent to that of Poland and the United Kingdom of Lithuania.
During the Warring States period in Japan, it was the end of the Ming Dynasty in China, and Hokkaido was still a wild land.
Moreover, in ancient Japan, as long as it was a little uplifted, it let the Chinese Empire next door take a hard shot, and even Korea bullied Japan once (Jihai Eastern Crusade), it can be said that until the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1895), Japan could only be a younger brother in East Asia.
Therefore, Japan's prestige in East Asia is seriously insufficient, as the saying goes: the people's hearts are not attached. Eating some colonies in East Asia, and still waving the banner of China, let alone participating in a world war, can't do it in East Asia, and still want to be a world empire? This takes time and precipitation, not a few aircraft carriers and millions of troops can run amok, after all, every empire has a period of prosperity and decline, how many once prosperous empires, now not even a single brick and tile remains?
Yuan Shu was still the emperor for two years (197-199), and the so-called "prestige" of the Japanese Empire was not as good as Yuan Shu.
To sum up, if you look at the picture at the beginning, you can explain why Japan lost World War II. In addition, the deeper reason is that in East Asia, China's influence is too deep for other countries to succeed.