`First, don't take the professor's advice as gospel. I, myself, have proven proffesor's have been wrong. Never get into a type of mentality where the professor knows everything and you accept everything he or she may say and regurgitate to an audience as if you were a zombie. Not intentionally implying you do but professors should not be looked upon as speakers of axioms in history. Consider what they say and most importantly recognize they are humans with bias as well and at times because of their position as a professor allow their overconfidence to relax into a false sense of ``knowing it all``. On the contrary, just when you decide you know everything, you really know nothing ) Nevertheless, I agree with you that WW II was predominantly European and the Pacific theater was minor. However, I disagree with the Japan and China assertion. Japan was seriously mistaken if it believed that pacifying China would allow it to win against the Unted Sttaes. Japan was trying to get a compromise with a United States but didn't bank on the fact that the Allies were not going to compromise ( Preceding WW II, many western and a good number of eastern journalists printed in their papers that Japan could never defeat Russia and China. japan did both. Japan tried the third time at beating a giant like the United States but what was different was that Japan was facing too m any nations that supported the United States and their unconditional surrender. Japan gambled and lost dearly. In my personal opinion, I think that that little island country the size of California lost the war the day of Pearl Harbor. I still look back at that event and wonder which idiot decided to gamble. Therefor, China or no China, it doesn't make a difference. Anyone familiar with how governments are st up should also be familiar that the appearance and actual control of a coutnry are twoo different things and Japan would have created more difficulties for itself in the long run with the appearance of control over China. Finally, I strongly disagree with your assertion about decolonization. Yes you are right, decolonization attempts ot attempts at independence did occur pre-WW II. However, the proliferation of these movements and the extents to which these movements went were significant enough to label the events of decolonization a historical period or reaction. Is tudy insurgencues and independence movements and know personally that pre-WWII movements of independence did not exist as the period we know as decolonization. Independence movements were not stron befor WW II. They were weak. Post-World War II Bretton Woods Conference may have been an indication of a new arisal of economic dominance but let's be realistic here. Low-Intensity Conflicts during the Cold War cannot and should not be ignored. They occured at such a scale to disinguish the decolonization term you revoke and also challenges western dominance in the geographic areas where these movements occurred. We cannot ignore history here based on esoteric semantics because 9 times out of ten, those semantics are used in place of a weak argument. So, decolonization is a term and deserves to be distinguished as a historical term and event.   `