Five years old, but vindicated, still quite relevant and accurate:
Who is China’s largest trading partner?
If you guessed the United States, you’re wrong. It’s the European Union.
If you got the first one right, here is another question: Who are the biggest exporters in the world? First place goes to the European Union. Second goes to China. Third would then go to Germany if it wasn’t already included within the EU. America comes in at a distant fourth place, followed by Japan.
The world has changed. Not long ago, America was both the largest exporter of manufactured goods and the world’s most important economy.
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Yes, a shift is occurring—and it is titanic. Today’s global power centers of manufacturing and trade have swung back to Europe and China. The most important and lucrative trade routes are once again between the old world’s East and West. The modern Silk Road is swarming with the new merchants.
The Road to Greece
The most recent example of this trend is China’s growing partnership with Greece.
Encouraged by government incentives and rock-bottom prices, China is pumping hundreds of millions and on the road to billions of euros into Greece, even as Americans and other investors head for the exits. According to the Washington Post, the cornerstone of those plans is the “transformation of the Mediterranean port of Piraeus into the Rotterdam of the south” that will create a “modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe and North Africa” (June 9; emphasis mine throughout).
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Gateway to Europe
In early October, at a joint press conference with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Wen highlighted the growing relationship between Europe and China. To emphasize China’s commitment to the European Union and the euro, he said that China would continue to support Europe’s economy. “China has already bought and is holding Greek bonds and will keep a positive stance in participating and buying bonds that Greece will issue,” Wen said. “China will undertake a great effort to support eurozone countries and Greece to overcome the [economic] crisis.”
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But as much as the increased trade will help Europe over the short term, it will inevitably come at the expense of America.
Anti-American “Mart of Nations”
Already China and Europe are collaborating on joint ventures such as nuclear research and the Galileo satellite system that are specifically designed to be a counterweight to American dominance.
But even more than being a counterbalance, the new alliance will create a multipolar global economy replacing American centricity. This is exactly what your Bible prophesies will happen over the next few short years.
Isaiah 23 warns of an end-time “mart of nations” that acts in economic alliance. This alliance includes the nations of China (Chittim) and Tyre (representing the commercial center of the European Union, also called the king of the north in other prophecies). This chapter, along with other scriptures, makes it evident that these two powerful economies are prophesied to work in confederacy to dominate global trade for a short period of time—at America’s expense.
Deuteronomy 28 foretells America being besieged by its enemies: “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee” (verse 52). Other prophecies reveal that the enemy that besieges the modern nations of Israel will be a German-led European Union (Habakkuk 1:6-17).
Besiege in the above verse means to shut up or tie up, or to be cramped, and has economic connotations. Europe will lead the world in shutting America and its allies out during a global trade war that becomes a hot war. Prophecy tells us America will be “cramped in” to the point where even food can no longer reach its shores.
…China’s new Silk Road to Europe is rerouting the flow of global commerce and finance—and it is skirting America. The early stages of America’s economic siege have begun.
Yet despite the bad news, there is great hope for America. “Two great trading blocs are positioning themselves to control the world,” says Mr. Flurry in his Isaiah booklet. “Both power conglomerates are discussed in Daniel 11:40-45 and in Isaiah 23. But that trading partnership won’t last long. Soon they will clash, just before Jesus Christ returns and destroys both of them.”
That’s the good news. World events are speeding along the greatest superhighway of all—the one leading to the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of an equitable and just global economic system that is guaranteed to bring prosperity to the whole world. ▪
Full article: The Silk Superhighway (The Trumpet)
Global Geopolitics 