On December 27, Yasuo Fukuda made his first visit to China since becoming prime minister of Japan in September. During the lead-up to this visit, Fukuda trumpeted the fact that he was glad to commemorate the year marking the 35th anniversary of the normalization of Sino-Japanese relations with a visit to China. Fukuda’s goal for the visit was, he said, “to further promote the development trend of Japan-China ties so that next year bilateral ties can develop even faster and move into a new stage.”

Fukuda’s meetings with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao centered around increasing Sino-Japanese cooperation on environmental and nuclear fission issues as well as on disputed oil/gas rights in the East China Sea. Fukuda also reiterated his support for China’s opposition to Taiwanese independence. The meetings went well and resulted in a new agreement whereby 50 Chinese researchers will be invited to Japan every year for the next four years for training in combating climate change. Wen told a joint news conference, “Prime Minister Fukuda said the spring has come in our relations and, after two and a half hours of talks, I truly feel that the spring of China-Japan relations has arrived.”

Indeed, relations between the two countries are thawing after the cold snap of 2001-2006. During this period, China refused high-level contact with Japan because of former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the Japanese “war heroes” of World War ii. China believes that the act of visiting the Yasukuni Shrine honors Japan’s militant past, including Japanese atrocities against China like the rape of Nanking. The relationship between China and Japan improved significantly when Koizumi stepped down. These relations are improving even more under Fukuda’s leadership. When asked whether or not he would visit the Yasukuni Shrine, Fukuda said, “Would you do something your friend [China] would not like? You wouldn’t, right?”

In Japanese political circles, Fukuda is recognized as the leader of the pro-Chinese faction. In fact, Fukuda has even been hailed as the most pro-China leader since his father, Takeo Fukuda, was prime minister in the late 1970s. The elder Fukuda established what is called the Fukuda doctrine: the policy that Japan should forever renounce aggression against its Asian neighbors and instead focus on building mutually beneficial ties with them. The younger Fukuda is continuing his father’s legacy and working to make Japan more Asia-focused.

Expect China to do whatever it can to reciprocate Fukuda’s overtures. As tensions between China and America rise over the trade deficit, human rights issues and Iran’s nuclear program, Beijing will be forced to look more and more to its Asian neighbors for support. The Chinese are already busy making trade deals and conducting joint military exercises with their neighbors Russia and India. Fukuda’s pro-Chinese policies provide an excellent opportunity for China to cooperate with Japan in its efforts to join the Asian power bloc.

Fukuda is seen as somewhat of a kindly old man and a foreign-policy dove. He is a firm believer in good relations with both Asia and America. Yet, despite what Fukuda may believe, strong Japanese relations with the states of Asia cannot occur without Japan tempering its security and military relations with America. China has emerged as a major U.S. competitor on the world scene, and from Beijing’s perspective, Tokyo will have to moderate its strong alliance with America before it can come fully on board with the rest of Asia. As Sino-American relations decline, Japan will have to decide which friend it wants to please.

Japan may be already starting to make its choice. On December 17, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force successfully destroyed a dummy ballistic missile in the first test of the Japanese missile-defense system. The anti-ballistic missile was launched from a Japanese ship off the coast of a Hawaiian island. Even though this test was conducted with cooperation from the United States, the ultimate goal for this project is for Japan to create its own missile-defense shield separate from the current U.S. nuclear “umbrella” that protects Japan. U.S. officials may hail this as another step toward greater security in East Asia; but it is really another step toward Japan being able to act independently of the U.S. By developing a missile-defense system separate from the current U.S. one in Japan, the Japanese are indicating that they may want to act independently of the United States in the future.

Within days of this missile test, the Democratic Party of Japan came out in support of a bill that approves the use of Japanese space technology for defense purposes. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party also supports this bill, so it is very likely to be passed at the next ordinary Diet session, which convenes in January. This bill and the development of Japan’s missile-defense shield show that Japan may be already laying the groundwork for future tempering of its security and military reliance on the United States.

Fukuda has done a lot to improve Japanese relations with China and will continue to do even more. Yet his popularity is declining. It is likely that when Fukuda steps down that he will be replaced by a leader who is more willing to get tough on America—possibly opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa. In such a scenario, Fukuda would have played a vital role in aligning Japan with Asia in preparation for an anti-American leader, such as Ozawa, to take the final step into Asian integration by weakening Japan’s American alliance. Japan has a choice to make. It cannot work closely with two rivals. Eventually, it will have to choose its friends. America is likely to be the loser.

The Plain Truth, with Herbert W. Armstrong as its editor in chief, wrote 40 years ago, “Despite popular belief, Japan is not permanently committed to a pro-Western position. America has foolishly followed the policy of assuming that … Germany and Japan can be converted to the virtues of democracy in less than a generation. … Both Japanese and Germans are willing, for the present, to put up with their so-called democratic form of government—until some serious internal crisis is precipitated. … Japan tolerates her present form of government as long as it is economically expedient. If the time were ever to come—and it will come—that the Japanese could not feed off of American aid, we would witness a remarkable change in attitude toward the United States. Friendship would quickly evaporate” (April 1968).

Japan is moving toward a status where it will not need to “feed off of American aid” and where it will have a strong alliance with the nations of Asia. Watch for “a remarkable change” in Japan’s attitude toward America as it cooperates with the rising power bloc in Asia.

For more information on a coming Asian alliance, read Russia and China in Prophecy.