| During the interwar years, the population of the nations in the region continued to rise. Always the most populous, China topped 400 million, while Japan (the second most populous) exceeded 55 million by the early 1920s. An industrial economy was emerging in China's cities, especially Shanghai with its many foreign concerns, as well as in Japan under the influence of World War I. Japan continued to penetrate the entire East Asian region, with the exception of Vietnam, prior to the 1940s. By the end of the interwar period, Japan would be at war with China and Vietnam, while continuing to maintain an increasingly brutal colonial policy over Korea. | 1 |
