re: The First World War began 112 years ago yesterday...

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And also, arguably more importantly, all related too. A bunch of squabbling cousins dragged Europe into hell

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Roll Tide!

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No. Had nothing to do with it. They attacked China for several reasons with the biggest being resources and empire expansion. Now, the May 4th movement was chinese anger, not Japan's.

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The May Fourth Movement itself was ignited in May 1919 by the decision at the Paris Peace Conference to transfer those German possessions in Shandong to Japan rather than return them to China. Students and intellectuals saw it as a betrayal of Wilson’s self-determination rhetoric and of China’s own contribution to the Allied war effort. Without the Japanese occupation of Tsingtao and the subsequent diplomatic confirmation of Japanese claims, that particular flashpoint would not have existed. So the capture both physically placed Japanese forces deeper into China and generated the concrete grievance that made the mass nationalist outburst possible.

That sequence of events did not make the 1931 Mukden Incident inevitable, but it raised the stakes, hardened Chinese resistance, and left Japanese militarists convinced that only firmer, more direct control (especially in resource-rich Manchuria) could secure Japan’s position against rising Chinese nationalism that the postwar order had inadvertently strengthened.

So yes, Japanese actions in the 1930s were directly fueled by the events of the First World War.