The link below reports that a very large Japanese-American naval exercise will be held in December in the Ryuku Islands which extend from Japan nearly to Taiwan. This will include the region of the East China Sea, not far from mainland China. According to the report, the joint naval maneuvers will see the region “swarming with Japanese and United States naval vessels” plus “numerous helicopters and fighter aircraft.”
The link also notes that the Japanese Navy now has “helicopter carriers” and is considering the formation of a Japanese Marine Corps, patterned, I assume, after the US Marine Corps. As the article notes, the exercises are clearly aimed at discouraging Chinese military expansionism in the region. Since the exercises will include a region extending almost to Taiwan, these exercises may also carry a hint to China that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be opposed by both Japan and the United States.
The Ryuku Islands include the island of Okinawa where fierce fighting took place in World War II between American and Japanese forces. That the USA and Japan are now solid allies and cooperating in that region to counter China’s rapidly-growing military power shows how much international geopolitics can change in just a couple generations. Japan is now a very trusted and valuable ally of the western nations and its fellow democracies. Those who wish to learn more about Japan’s role in latter-day prophecy are invited to read my article, Japan‘s Role in Biblical Prophecy. As you will see, the critically-important, latter-day prophecy in Ezekiel 38-39 strongly infers that the USA and Japan will be allies during the latter-days and in the age-ending World War III which is prophesied in those chapters.
Let’s hope this naval exercise takes place as planned and as scheduled. In a previous blog post, it was noted that when China growled about the location of the recent South Korean-American naval exercises, the Obama administration weakly changed the naval exercise plans to appease China. Appeasement never works. It simply emboldens the militaristic nation which has been appeased. Another remarkable event was described in my August 11th blog post: a first-ever, “friendly” naval exercise between the US and Vietnamese navies. That exercise was prompted by joint concerns in the USA and Vietnam about China’s growing militarism. There is an interesting dynamic going on here. The more aggressively China remilitarizes and acts, the more it forces all other nations in the region into an anti-Chinese alliance. The wisdom of the axiom, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” applies in Asia as well as the Mideast.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/LH31Dh01.html
