Past posts to this blog have discussed China’s increasingly bellicose and expansive claims to ownership of the South China Sea. These claims ignore the obvious maritime claims of other nations in that region such as Vietnam and the Philippines, whose land masses also border the South China Sea. In the first link, the Asia Times reports that India is preparing to challenge China’s “assertiveness” in that Sea. India has growing economic interests in the South China Sea, a region which has seen “a dramatic escalation” in the number of maritime disputes.
The article cites India’s “increasingly robust naval muscle” and its plans to add “an armada” of 140 new warships to its navy over the next decade, led by two new aircraft carriers and domestically-designed nuclear submarines. Given that the smaller regional Asian nations like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam are increasingly threatened by China’s new militarism, these nations will surely welcome India’s naval expansion and its willingness to be a counterweight to China’s navy.
India is not the only strong nation preparing to militarily counter China’s aggressive claims in the South China Sea. Japan is also upset at China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, and it too is “considering a more robust military posture to offset China’s military prowess in the region” (see second link). The article notes that Japan has 50 major surface warships to counter China’s 70 surface warships, but Japan’s warships are assumed to be more technologically advanced. If India and Japan join with the other smaller nations in the region, their combined naval might matches or exceeds that of China in numerical terms. One must also consider two other factors (A) Japan, India and their smaller allies are likely to be allied to Australia and the USA in any actual naval warfare, and (B) all naval forces will be supported by land-based warplanes. China has a massive number of near-by, land-based warplanes that could fire cruise missiles at the warships of other nations in any confrontation in the South China Sea. Japan’s and India’s land-based warplanes are a long way from the South China Sea and US aircraft carrier warplanes would become vital in any conflict in the region.
It is increasingly apparent that China’s warlike actions and growing militarism are pushing India, Japan and the other smaller Pacific Rim nations into a common defensive alliance vs. China. This fits perfectly well with the prophecy in Ezekiel 38:13 which identifies a second Asian alliance which will not be allied to the Gog-Magog alliance of Russia, China, Iran and their allies. That verse describes this second Asian alliance as “Sheba and Dedan and the merchants of Tarshish and the young lions thereof.” For over two decades, I have identified these nations as India, Japan and the smaller Pacific Rim nations known today as the “young tiger” nations, and predicted that they would eventually form an alliance of their own that would be opposed to the Gog-Magog alliance. Modern events are increasingly indicating this prophetic application is correct. The fact that this emerging alliance is taking shape now further demonstrates that the entire Ezekiel 38-39 prophecy will be fulfilled in our modern time. Ezekiel 38:8 and 16 state categorically that it is a prophecy to be fulfilled in “the latter days” or “latter years” [of our current age]. Many Christian churches and groups which follow prophecy are convinced that we are now living in the biblically-prophesied “latter days,” so it should be no surprise that Ezekiel 38’s prophecy is increasingly being fulfilled today. The alliances prophesied in Ezekiel 38 (the Gog-Magog alliance headed by Russia, China and Iran, the House of Israel alliance headed by the USA and NATO, and the second Asian alliance discussed above are all taking shape rapidly in their prophesied alignments, confirming that the Bible is, indeed, the Divine Word of a Creator God who can implement his prophesies for the nations. The nations do not realize it, but they are all following a Divine script for the latter days which was set forth millennia ago in Bible Prophecies.
To learn more details about how Bible prophecies reveal what is going to transpire in the years ahead of us, please read my articles, Are We Living in the Biblical “Latter Days?”, The United States of America in Biblical Prophecy, What Ezekiel 38-39 Reveal about a Future World War III [PDF] and Japan’s Role in Biblical Prophecy .
