Billing himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” Barack Obama reassured an audience in Tokyo last weekend that America was committed to strengthening multilateral organizations in Asia in order to secure peace and prosperity throughout the region. The United States expects to be involved in discussions that “shape the future” of Southeast Asia, the president asserted.

Japan’s newly elected government, however, is not interested in strengthening ties with the U.S. Since his election in September, Prime Minister Hatoyama has been working to reduce Japan’s dependence on the United States and to reorient its focus toward Asian nations.

Hoping to prevent the loss of America’s most important Asian ally, President Obama bent over backward (and forward) while in Japan. Within hours of touching down in Tokyo, the president announced that he would establish a work group to review the hotly disputed ongoing presence of U.S. Marines in Okinawa. Japan wants to back out of a deal it made in 2006 to relocate the Marine base to a less-populated area of Okinawa. By establishing the work group, President Obama is opening the door for the deal to be renegotiated, which will ultimately result in a diminished U.S. military presence in Asia.

The day after announcing the work group, President Obama made history—and enraged critics—by becoming the first U.S. president to bow before a foreign leader. According to the New York Times, the president’s aides said Obama was unfazed by the wave of criticism at home.

But he was obviously sensitive to similar criticism in April, when right-wingers accused President Obama of bowing before Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Back then, his aides insisted the president didn’t bow—that he was only leaning forward to shake the king’s hand. This time, however, he left little doubt about his genuflection before Emperor Akihito.

It reveals a lot about how desperate President Obama is to improve Japanese-American relations. Indeed—he now seems much less concerned about offending his own countrymen than he is about trying to impress a wavering ally with deferential obeisance.

Reassuring America’s Creditor

The bow in Japan perfectly symbolized the submissive tone President Obama conveyed throughout his three-day visit to China as well. Even before the swing through Asia, according to the New York Times, the White House had been “working for months” on the conciliatory image the president would convey while in Beijing (emphasis mine throughout). In October, for example, President Obama refused to meet with the Dalai Lama, who is condemned as a separatist in China, because he didn’t want to offend Beijing in the lead-up to his Asia trip.

Washington also muted its often-repeated criticisms against China’s human rights record, its blatant currency manipulation and its stubborn refusal to apply pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program.

“I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” President Obama reassured the Japanese while in Tokyo, “as I have said, in an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of others.”

China should not be feared—or even criticized, it now seems. And why? Because China happens to be financing America’s astronomical burden of debt!

In many ways, the New York Times noted before the China visit, President Obama would assume “the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.” Whereas presidents Bush and Clinton pressured China on issues like currency manipulation and human rights, President Obama is now forced to grovel before the banker, which is why he returned from Asia with absolutely nothing to show for it.

“China effectively stage-managed President Obama’s public appearances, got him to make statements endorsing Chinese positions of political importance to them and effectively squelched discussions of contentious issues such as human rights and China’s currency policy,” a Cornell professor told the New York Times.

The Chinese government left nothing to chance, the Los Angeles Times added. “Obama did not meet with Chinese journalists, lawyers, human rights advocates, environmentalists or any ordinary Chinese ….”

For the “town hall” meeting in Shanghai, Beijing stuffed the auditorium full of students who were members of the Young Communist League. The government then refused to broadcast the event nationwide, in case President Obama made the mistake of saying anything provocative (which he didn’t).

During President Obama’s “press conference” with Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Communist government prevented the media from asking any questions.

On exhorting China to join other nations in pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, President Obama got nothing. In return for hinting that China should more fairly adjust its currency rate, the United States was lectured about the weak dollar and accused of being protectionist.

Then, perhaps taking his cue from the scolding he received from America’s creditors in Beijing, President Obama told Fox News, in an interview given while he was in China, that if America keeps adding to its debt, “at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

The money lenders in Beijing are obviously more concerned about America’s runaway deficit than the big spenders in Washington.

On balance, President Obama’s Asian trip was a disaster. “Not only is the U.S. president coming away without definable concessions, but the Chinese appeared to be digging in their heels,” the left-wing Los Angeles Times reported. Other articles succinctly summarize the string of failures: “China Holds Firm on Major Issues in Obama’s Visit” and “Obama’s Pacific Trip Encounters Rough Waters,” read headlines from the New York Times.

It must be bad when the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Times gang up on Barack Obama.

Fred Barnes sums it up best by asking, “Has a president ever been less successful on a trip overseas than President Obama has on his eight-day excursion to Asia? I’ve been covering presidents since Gerald Ford and I can’t think of one.”

The Road Ahead

If you are at all familiar with our prophetic analysis, you know where this is all leading. America, as we wrote here, is about to lose its Japanese ally. In fact, we have been saying this for decades! “Despite its many national, religious and political differences, Asia will ultimately be welded together into a common power bloc,” the Plain Truth wrote in April 1968.

More recently, we wrote in Russia and China in Prophecy, “The prospect of the continued expansion of the EU into a combined bloc larger and more powerful than the U.S. and Russia, and the perceived weakening of U.S. global influence, is driving China and its Asian neighbors to position themselves as the next great global power bloc. Both China and Japan will combine in Asian alliances, with the ultimate intention of forcing the U.S. out of the western Pacific.”

That is happening! And so is the shrinking global influence of the United States—a now obvious reality that was on full display during the president’s stop in China. “The borrower is servant to the lender,” God’s Word thunders! (Proverbs 22:7).

“America has become increasingly dependent upon foreign credit to pay its bills, piling debt upon debt, until it has mortgaged itself to the hilt!” we wrote more than 12 years ago.

The United States has mortgaged away its global power and influence, which is why our current leaders grovel before foreign potentates and beg them for strategic alliances.

And what do we receive in return for these humble acts of conciliation?

Nothing—unless you count universal enmity and stinging rebuke.