He had abused his power and killing people
These notorious demands were issued at a time of shifting balance of power in East Asia. With the Qing dynasty’s humiliating defeat in the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), regional dominance for the first time had moved from China to Japan. Japan’s ambitions in China were further emboldened by its decisive victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), which affirmed the Japanese presence in south Manchuria and Korea. The 1911 Revolution brought an end to the Qing dynasty and ushered in the Republican era in China, but China remained a pushover in the face of pressure from Western Powers. Furthermore, Yuan’s ruling status itself was shaky due to threats from competing local warlords. World War I granted Japan a perfect opportunity to push the envelope even more with China. As the war was underway in Europe, the Japanese hoped that other major powers would show little interest in countering Japanese expansion in China. For these reasons, Japanese Foreign Minister Kato was convinced that the filing of an ultimatum buttressed by the war threat would cause China to accept all the demands. so basically to control most of asia
Explanation:
While the war was going on, Northern writers and speakers referred to it as a “civil war” because of their belief that individual states had no right to secede from the Union.
