Japan has taken a very important and historic step. It has freed its sizable military forces from the artificially-defined “self-defense force” label that it has been assigned under the pacifist post World-War II Constitution that also limited its role to merely defending the Japanese home islands. The Japanese Constitution has now been reinterpreted to allow Japan to deploy its military forces elsewhere to participate in the collective defense of its allies and their military forces if engaged against an enemy. These two links [1, 2] give two different perspectives on this step.
As I understand it, this historic step allows the Japanese government to go to war in a collaborative effort with its allies against a common enemy not just in the Japanese home islands, but anywhere else as well. This step was needed and it should be welcomed by the western world and by all nations on the Pacific Rim that are threatened by China. It is clear that China is the enemy about which Japan is worried. China’s military build-up threatens not just Japan, but it also threatens South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, India, Australia, etc.
Previous posts have warned that China’s very warlike and aggressive stance in the South China Sea and elsewhere could be a prelude to a regional war which China may actually want to provoke. China has built a large war machine, but it is entirely untested and its military troops have never been exposed to actual combat conditions. China needs to test its new weaponry under combat conditions to see if it works as expected or not, just as Hitler field-tested some of his new weaponry in the Spanish Civil War before he could confidently start World War II.
Japan is taking a realistic view of China’s threat, and its historic step sends a message to both China and the nations threatened by China that Japan is now willing to deploy its military forces elsewhere to help other nations threatened by any Chinese military action. Japan, as a maritime trading nation that needs raw materials from other nations, must also be able to deploy its navy elsewhere to secure its vital shipping lanes.
This step by Japan is very much within my expectations for Japan’s role in biblical prophecy in the latter days. I have for many years seen Ezekiel 38:13 as prophesying that a Pacific Rim coalition of nations will form, in the latter days, that will not be part of the Gog-Magog alliance. I have seen Japan as the “merchants of Tarshish” as Tarshish is a nation descended from Japheth (Genesis 10:1-4), and can be expected to be located in the Asiatic/Oriental region. Japan became a “nation of merchants” quite literally in recent decades as it pioneered an aggressive export-driven economy. The “young lions” (smaller Asian nations) copied Japan’s export-driven model and the financial press has called them the “young tiger” nations for many years, interestingly paralleling the biblical terminology for them.
For a more detailed analysis of Japan’s role in latter-day prophecy, please read my articles, Japan’s Role in Biblical Prophecy and What Ezekiel 38-39 Foretell about a Future World War III.
The pieces of Ezekiel 38-39’s prophecy for the great latter day (Ezekiel 38:8 and 16) war that will herald the end of this age and trigger Divine intervention (God’s “presence” comes to the earth in Ezekiel 38:20) are all falling into place exactly as prophesied. For so many nations to fulfill their biblically prophesied roles in the end of our age proves that the Holy Bible has to be the inspired Word of a Divine Creator God. Mankind ignores God’s reality at its own peril.
- http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-japan-defense-idUSKBN0F52S120140701
- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=327145403&ft=1&f=
