Japan's army took control of the government in Tokyo in late nineteen thirty-one. The army was fearful of the growing threat to Japan's control of Manchuria.
They used the weakness of Beijing to their advantage, pushing for trade concessions and leases on land in Manchuria, a resource-rich province relatively close to Japan.
In 1952 Downey, then a 22-year-old Yale graduate on his first assignment for the five-year-old CIA, was shot down over Manchuria, along with his fellow spook Richard Fecteau.
Japan had defeated Russia in a war in nineteen five. This victory gave Japan control over the economy of the southern part of what was then called Manchuria, in northeastern China.
I’d say no - it actually started when Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, or at the very latest when the Japanese invaded China in 1937, because they didn’t stop fighting until 1945.