Movement Throughout the map, arrows are used to show the progress of the Japanese military as it invaded neighboring Asian countries. What does the direction of expansion suggest about Japan?

Japan, as an island nation, has always been heavily constrained by lack of resources. Going into WWII, the nation imported 88 percent of its oil and was utterly dependent on raw material imports to sustain its industrial base. Unable to achieve self-sufficiency, and unwilling to capitulate, the Japanese had no alternative but to go to war and seize by force the resources they desperately required. Particularly vital to Japanese interests were the petroleum-rich Dutch East Indies — modern-day Indonesia — and the rubber plantations and tin mines of British Malaya. An Imperial push into Southeast Asia had the added advantage of cutting off the Burma Road, which ran north through modern Myanmar into China's Yunnan province. This key transit route had long sustained the Chinese in their struggle against Japan.