South Korea Plays for the Fences

In the last couple of weeks South Korea has been making news with its plans to bolster military ties with China and Russia. The Koreans and the Chinese have agreed to have defense minister meetings be a regular occurrence, as well as engage in more security exchanges. Currently South Korea wants to bring its military partnership with China to the same level of strategic importance as its military relationship with Japan. In addition, the South Korean defense minister will travel to Russia to try to boost military cooperation with the Russian Army.
This is the latest attempts by South Korea to distance themselves from their long time allies the United States and Japan. South Korea is currently trying to balance its traditional alliance with the US and its new cooperation with China. Currently, Korea and China are becoming major economic partners and this has led to a more strained relationship between the Washington and Seoul.
Personally I don't blame the Koreans for trying to ally with China, because if you look from their point of view you can see that American influence in the region is shrinking while the Chinese are growing ever more powerful. It is only natural that the South Koreans would want to switch to the apparent stronger side.
I just bring this up to show how gradually China is gaining strength and slowly it is even able to split our own historic, well established alliances. This is the old strategy of divide and conquer. China currently is dividing us, and very regrettably it will soon conquer us.