PREORDER GMT Games - Chinas War: 1937-1941July 7 1937: a nighttime skirmish at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing erupts into an invasion and occupation of China by the Imperial Japanese Army that would not end until 1945. Western sources call it the Second Sino Japanese War; in China it is the War of Resistance; and in Japan it is blandly referred to as the China Incident. Chinas War: 1937 1941 examines the first five years of the conflict when China stood alone against the Japanese Empire.