[citation needed] After he received his commission, Chō was assigned to his first duty outside Japan with the politicized Kwantung Army based in eastern China.

He returned to play a very active role in internal politics within the Japanese army, and was an active or indirect participant in the March Incident and the Imperial Colors Incident (with other leaders: Kingoro Hashimoto, Jirō Minami, Sadao Araki for the military, and nationalists Ikki Kita, Shūmei Ōkawa, Mitsuru Toyama, Kanichiro Kamei and Kozaburo Tachibana).

[2] At the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chō was commander of the IJA 74th Infantry Regiment of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force, attached to Japanese Central China Area Army, and based in Manchukuo.

[4] Chō was Vice Chief of Staff of Unit 82 within the Military Affairs Bureau, in the Ministry of War in 1941, and participated in the strategic and tactical planning for the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia.

[5] Later in the early hours of 22 June the staff in the command post lined up to pay their respects to Ushijima who was attired in his full dress uniform and Cho who wore a white kimono.

Handed a knife by an aide Ushijima shouted and made a deep vertical cut in his bared abdomen before Captain Sakaguchi (who was regarded as a master swordsman) decapitated him with his sword.