What problem was keeping railroads from connecting their lines across the united states?

china unilaterally claims the entire south china sea as sovereign territory, then builds artificial islands to bolster its claim. it suddenly activates an air defense identification zone over the east china sea, and threatens to down any aircraft that does not report its position. it builds roads into indian territory, then redraws the maps to show that it is actually chinese territory. the people's republic under president xi jinping is quickly becoming the bully of asia.

the fact that could also be added to column b is that during world war ii, specifically between the years 1941 and 1945, japan expanded its territory towards the indonesian territory in what was known later as part of the "pacific war". in that time, japan could conquer the philipines, singapore,   borneo, central java, malang, cebu, sumatra and various other islands of the area, therefore expanding its territory for a brief period of time.