An Advance Peek at Two Fulfilled Prophecies
This provocative headline recently appeared on Brussels-based theparliament.com: “Fischer calls on EU to ‘wake up’ to ‘threat from the East.’”
Germany’s former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer is warning that the European Union needs to get its act together. It faces a crisis, he says, that could “dwarf” its current economic woes: a tectonic geopolitical shift that threatens to leave Europe eating dust.
“I am talking about the shifting balance of power in the world from the west to the east,” Fischer recently told a packed meeting of prominent Eurofederalists in the European Parliament. He specifically cited “a transfer of wealth eastwards with the emergence of fast-growing economies in China and India.”
His comments—which have been echoed by other European leaders—provide an extraordinary early look at the fulfillment of two critical end-time biblical prophecies.
Fischer was speaking in the context of the Continent’s financial crisis. With several European economies in a mess, guess who is stepping in to help? “It is no longer Uncle Sam … but the Chinese old uncles from Southeast Asia,” Fischer said in his speech.
Drawing from its mammoth $2.85 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, China is buying Portuguese, Greek and Spanish bonds, throwing its financial might behind the euro. It already holds over $900 billion worth of eurozone national debt, and China’s vice premier says it will invest even more. Japan, the number-two owner of foreign-exchange reserves after China, has also agreed to throw money at propping up Europe’s currency.
Europe can certainly use the help. Publicly it is lauding the growth in Sino-European ties and appears glad to see more Asian investment.
But Fischer represents a powerful contingent that views this trend with anxiety, and that eyes its growing economic partner as a threat.
Viewed through the lens of biblical prophecy, the emerging Euro-Asian economic partnership is astounding.
China and Japan clearly see Europe’s currency as the most attractive alternative to the wobbly U.S. dollar. With America madly pursuing policies that will drive its value into the ground, the dollar is destined to lose its status as the world’s reserve currency. The euro is a natural second option.
We’ve been writing about the inevitability of this trend for years—but China’s and Japan’s recent moves into Europe represent a major lurch forward. Their highly public statements of support for eurozone nations, their bond buy-ups, the announcement that China’s icbc bank will open branches in more European countries—these are big steps toward establishing the euro’s dominance. They presage an unprecedented linkage between European and Asian economies.
Already Europe has passed the United States as China’s largest trade partner. Europe is collaborating with China on nuclear research and the Galileo satellite system, projects expressly designed to counter America. Expect the trend to grow. As the dollar falls and America’s power and influence wane, Eurasian economic entanglements are certain to multiply.
What we are witnessing brings life to a prophecy found in the biblical book of Isaiah. It foretells of an economic alliance involving Tyre, which prophetically represents the commercial center of the European Union, the “ships of Tarshish,” referring to modern Japan, and “the land of Chittim,” speaking of southern China. (Proof of China’s prophetic identity can be found in our recent article “Is China in the Bible?” A more complete explanation of this prophecy appears in the Trumpet editor in chief’s booklet Isaiah’s End-Time Vision in the chapter “Building Toward a World Catastrophe.”) In the 23rd chapter, Isaiah prophesied of this coming “mart of nations” (verse 3). This dynamic economic behemoth will comprise what prophecy reveals will be, by that time, the world’s two great superpowers: a coalescing Asian alliance, and a powerfully unified Europe—actually a resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire.
That is what makes this trend so significant. In Asia’s bold moves into Europe, it appears we are seeing the dramatic embryonic growth of this prophesied economic “mart”! (You can read more about this in Robert Morley’s recent article “The Silk Superhighway.”)
But the fact that this development troubles European leaders points to the fulfillment of a second prophecy.
There’s no doubt that, after decades of American dominance, China’s skyrocketing economic might marks something of a revolution. The World Economic Forum’s (wef’s) annual meeting in Davos will be dominated this year by information about China. “The world has fundamentally changed,” said Klaus Schwab, the wef founder. “One of the most important factors of the new reality is the shift of geopolitical and geoeconomic power from north to south, from west to east.”
China announced last week that its economy rocketed 10.3 percent last year (compared to what was probably less than 3 percent for the U.S.). After having sustained that level of growth every year for a decade—six times America’s growth rate over the same period—last year, China passed the U.S. as the world’s biggest national economy in terms of purchasing power.
Excluding the multinational EU, China is now the world’s biggest exporter, the world’s second-largest importer, the world’s greatest auto market, the world’s biggest user of energy, and the world’s largest military. “The last decade was characterized by ‘made in China,’ the next will be ‘bought by China,’” says the Guardian.
The trend is clear: Unless Europe strengthens its position, China is destined to dominate. Little wonder, then, that all this news from Asia troubles European leaders.
The Prophet Daniel describes a shocking sequence of end-time events that are about to unfold, events that will sweep the world into a holocaust. (We have written about this many times; you can read about it in our booklet The King of the South.) At the heart of that prophecy is Europe, which—for the seventh time in its history—will have again reconstituted itself as the Holy Roman Empire. Its success will galvanize China and Russia to combine and consolidate the armies of Asia in order to check Europe’s advance.
Thus, Daniel says of this European empire, “tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him” (Daniel 11:44). Which countries are located east and north of Europe? China and Russia. Deeply alarming news emerging from these Asian states as they unify and prepare for war will provoke this empire to swift, violent action. Read the prophecy.
Europe’s present anxious response to Asia’s current meteoric rise foreshadows this future event. In his recent speech, Fischer called on Europe to “combine our interests” to meet the challenge. “The world is rapidly changing and the EU has to ensure that it is not left behind. … The [economic] crisis has taught us a severe lesson and we must learn. It requires more unity, at least in the euro area. … I see no alternative.”
This is the repeated pattern in European history: Crises catalyze action. In this case, troubling “tidings out of the east” could well hasten the rise of a strong leader who can solve Europe’s economic woes. Prophecy shows that the Continent certainly will “wake up” to the “threat from the East”!
