China Hits SoKor For Aligning With U.S.

Seoul is standing its ground after warnings from Beijing that it is making “wrong bets” in the Sino-US rivalry, and South Korea continues to deepen its deterrence capabilities with the US and Japan, Alyssa Chen reported for The Japan Times.

Photo Insert: The push by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to build closer security and economic ties with Washington and Tokyo has both surprised and concerned China.

Long wary of alienating China, its biggest trading partner and a key country in any attempt to rein in nuclear-armed North Korea, the push by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to build closer security and economic ties with Washington and Tokyo has both surprised and concerned China, especially as Washington’s rivalry with Beijing sends that relationship into a tailspin.

Observers say Beijing is wary of what it calls a US-led policy of “containment, encirclement and suppression,” a push that it claims includes bringing Seoul on board.

China is practically deaf to demands by Asian neighbors to stop promoting the illusion that it is entitled to 90% of the South China Sea (SCS) and end its arrogant, bullying rhetoric against other claimant nations.

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