If it is, we’re in agreement. I’ve said that the German war being fought from 1939 to 1941 was a regional conflict in Europe and the Japanese War being fought from 1937 to 1941 was a regional conflict fought in Asia. Then from 1941 to 1945, these regional wars joined together and became a global war. So I figure people can make a reasonable argument that the global war started in 1941. Or they can make a reasonable argument that the regional wars that led to the global war can be counted as part of that war in which case they started in 1937. But I still don’t see how anyone can make the arbitrary distinction that one regional conflict was part of the latter global war and the other one wasn’t.
Some people are making the argument that the war between Germany and England was automatically a global war because the British Empire was a global power (presumedly they are also making the same point about other colonial powers like France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). But I disagree with this argument. If it were true then we’ve had dozens of world wars - every war that Britain or France or Belgium or the Netherlands or Spain of Portugal fought in over a period of a couple of centuries would be a global war. Nobody calls the Spanish-American War a world war even though it involved countries and possessions on four continents. Nobody calls the Boer War a world war even though troops from England, India, Canada, and Australia were all fighting together in South Africa. These were just local wars that had participants from global empires.
As cckerberos pointed out, I did not change articles as you are claiming. The date I found was on the same page as the one you linked to - a Chinese Wikipedia page, apparently about the Second World War. And it does apparently list 1937 and 1939 as starting dates for the war. I can’t be sure exactly what they’re saying because like you I don’t speak Chinese (and why are we citing pages in a language neither of us speak?) but the same table format is used in other articles so I assume it’s being used here. I did also mention a different Wikipedia article in English but I made it clear I was citing a different article.
The problem is most people have only read books by European or American historians and they tend to emphasize the European and American experience in the war. Books like Pacific War, 1931-1945 by Saburo Ienaga, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific by Akira Iriye, China’s Bitter Victory: The War With Japan, 1937-1945 edited by James C. Hsiung, or China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1931-41 by Youli Sun look at the war from an Asian perspective. But Asian historians like these who write in English or whose works are translated into English are fairly rare and most people accept the Western perspective as the default consensus without being aware that there are widely held differing opinions.
Granted ‘world war’ is poorly defined but where I think you are at odds with people is in the scale and intensity of the ‘regional war’ in Europe as you call it. I’m not classing that war as a world war just because a global power Britain (or France) was involved. I wouldnt class for instance a British war with say Chile as a world war because its scope would be quite small. But this ‘European’ war was a world war because it was a total war involving global powers with a scale so vast that it had important repercussions for most of the world’s population. It would *still * have been classed as a world war even if the US had not ultimately become involved. Overnight it transformed international trade and had a profound impact upon the global economy. It saw forces raised from the Punjab and across Africa. Britain and France imposed wartime restrictions and controls across territory that covered most of the globe. German surface raiders claimed vessels off Brazil, Mozambique and Australia. German ships even operated off the coast of New Zealand, as far from Europe as you can get. Patrolling, convoying, escort, and minesweeping routines had to be established from Sierre Leone to Ceylon. The German merchant fleet was hunted in turn all over the world and ships fell off the coast of South Africa (Watussi), and Mexico (Emmy Friedrich) and were even hunted in the Pacific (google “Erlangen”).
And fighting (even before the involvement of the US linked the ‘European’ and ‘Pacific’ war) wasn’t confined to Europe and North Africa. They were the biggest and most important theatres certainly but fighting also occurred in:
Somalia - Italian invasion and conquest of British Somaliland
Kenya - Italian forces from Ethipia advance into Kenya
Sudan - Italians also advance into the Sudan
Ethiopia - British invade and capture Ethiopia using forces brought from India, South Africa, Rhodesia and elsewhere in Africa
(this also results in naval battles in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean)
Chad/Libya - Free French forces in Chad attack Italians in Libya
Senegal - British and Free French launch an unsuccessful attack on Dakar
Gabon - Free French forces invade Gabon
Syria/Lebanon - Invasion of Syria and Lebanon by British and Free French forces
Iraq - British defeat pro-German rebels (backed by a Luftwaffe contingent)
Iran - British and Russians invade Iran