Japan’s Democratic Party leader, Yukio Hatoyama, has published an essay outlining his staunch support for an East Asian alliance of nations. Because Hatoyama is poised to become the next Japanese prime minister after elections to be held August 30, his political philosophies give an indication of Japan’s probable geopolitical direction in the near term.

The essay, titled “My Political Philosophy,” was published Tuesday in the Japanese journal Voice, and reveals Hatoyama’s desire to distance Japan from “U.S.-led market fundamentalism.”

“[A]s a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis,” Hatoyama wrote, “the era of the U.S.-led globalism is coming to an end, and we are moving away from a unipolar world led by the U.S. towards an era of multipolarity.”

He promised to protect his country from the effects of unchecked globalization, saying, “[W]e will not implement policies that leave economic activities in areas relating to human lives and safety, such as agriculture, the environment and medicine, at the mercy of the tides of globalism.”

Instead, Mr. Hatoyama supports a drive toward political integration into “an East Asian community,” saying “the East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality in its economic growth and even closer mutual ties, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being.”

Referring to a common Asian currency, Hatoyama said Japan should “spare no effort to build the permanent security frameworks essential to underpinning currency integration.”

Hatoyama specified that this East Asian community should be modeled after the European Union. He referred to the EU’s principle of subsidiarity in the Maastricht Treaty, saying this principle is “a path towards the construction [of] a more distinctive, appealing and beautiful Japan.”

At a briefing for foreign media, Hatoyama also pledged not to visit the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo, which honors 2.5 million lives lost in World War ii. Past visits to the shrine by Japanese officials have offended China and other countries because they view it as a symbol of Japan’s violent occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945.

Hatoyama went on to express his eagerness to tackle difficult issues that have long plagued Sino-Japanese relations, including friction regarding ownership of gas fields in the East China Sea.

“Of course, claims from Japan and China may not always sit together well. But I regard things like the joint development of the gas fields as one of the processes toward reconciliation,” he said. “My belief is that, by working on outstanding problems … the sense of our mutual trust will become more profound.”

Coming from such a prominent politician, these overtures to China carry weight. The shift in Japan’s priorities—away from the U.S. security alliance and toward stronger ties with the surrounding “kings of the east”—is not new, but it will likely gather momentum under Hatoyama. Despite current Western orientation, and the security relationship Tokyo has maintained with Washington since World War ii, Japan has deeply-rooted Eastern ideologies, and will ultimately return to its roots.

Culturally and religiously, Japan has considerably more in common with China than with the U.S. The tendency of nations to align with other nations of similar heritage, religion and culture is widely recognized. Respected expert in international relations Samuel Huntington wrote the following in his defining book, The Clash of Civilizations: “In coping with identity crisis, what counts for people are blood and belief, faith and family. People rally to those with similar ancestry, religion, language, values and institutions and distance themselves from those with different ones.”

This is why Yukio Hatoyama’s desire to cultivate a greater rapport with China is significant. A strengthening of Sino-Japanese relations is on the horizon. For further insight into the future of Asia, read our free booklet Russia and China in Prophecy.