Editing Anti-Comintern Pact (section)

=== Second Sino-Japanese War ===
{{Main|Second Sino-Japanese War}}
The Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan met its first trial when Japan and China, both of whom were important partners with Germany, went to war. The [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], provoked by the Japanese forces through the [[Marco Polo Bridge Incident]], forced Germany to reassess the balance of its economic relationship with China and its ideological and military alignment with Japan. It was evident that Germany would have to abandon one of its partners in favor of the other, and made the decision to favor Japan over China, although Hitler himself had as late as 1936 personally still assured the Chinese ambassador that Germany would maintain the two countries' important relationship.<ref name="Stratman-1970" />{{Rp|30–34}}

While Germany's policy in regards to the war between Japan and China was one of strict neutrality,<ref name="Sontag-1950">{{Cite book |url=https://digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb00062877_00001.html |title=Von Neurath zu Ribbentrop. September 1937 – September 1938 |publisher=Vandenhoeck + Ruprecht |year=1950 |editor-last=Sontag |editor-first=Raymond James |series=Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945 |volume=D-1 |location=Göttingen |language=de |editor-last2=Wheeler-Bennet |editor-first2=John W. |editor-last3=Baumont |editor-first3=Maurice |display-editors=1}}</ref>{{Rp|599–600}} it made no particular effort, diplomatic or otherwise, to stop the Japanese aggression against China. The German government and foreign service still remained privately critical of the Japanese course of action. When Japanese ambassador to Germany Mushanokōji explained to state secretary [[Ernst von Weizsäcker]] that the Japanese invasion of China kept in the spirit of the Anti-Comintern Pact in its attempt to vanquish Chinese communism, Weizsäcker dismissed Mushanokōji's explanation on the basis of the German view that the Japanese action would foster rather than stifle the growth of communism in China.<ref name="Stratman-1970" />{{Rp|31–32}} Weizsäcker, in his notes with regards to this conversation with Mushanokōji, expressed the fear that the Japanese aggression could lead directly to an alliance between the Soviet Union and China.<ref name="Sontag-1950" />{{Rp|607–608}}