China has overtaken America as the top destination for Japanese exports for the first time since World War ii ended in 1945. According to data from Japan’s Finance Ministry, Japanese exports to China climbed 16.8 percent this July while those to America tumbled 11.5 percent. This turnabout is being driven not only by the rising friendship between Tokyo and Beijing, but also by the plummeting value of the U.S. dollar.

“China’s emergence is a reminder to Japanese exporters that they’ll have to keep thinking how to expand in emerging markets, having previously focused on the U.S.,” said Masamichi Adachi, a senior economist at JPMorgan Chase.

Statistics show that China is now consuming more Japanese goods than all the nations of Europe combined. As Japan is able to rely more and more on its Asian neighbors as trade partners, its alliance with America is likely to fragment.

Consider the following statement from Herbert W. Armstrong’s Plain Truth magazine in April 1968:

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 the 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.

Japan is almost to the point were it could function without American aid. Watch for friendship to evaporate. For more information on Japan’s changing alliances, read “America’s Loss—Asia’s Gain” by Brad Macdonald.