Moon bent on balancing act between US, China

With US President Donald Trump in Japan and soon to arrive here with the North Korean nuclear and missile threat high on his agenda, it may be of US interest to keep the two -- arguably the US' closest regional allies -- unified in resolving the standoff with North Korea.

But for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, fresh off from a "let's patch up" deal with China and now bent on performing a balancing act between two great powers, that is not a simple matter.

Washington has long stressed the need for enhanced South Korea-Japan military cooperation to create a stronger defense partnership among the US, South Korea and Japan. A trilateral alliance would not only better counter North Korea, but ease the strain on US defense capabilities in the region, it asserted.

While acknowledging stronger ties with Japan are essential in deterring the North, South Korea has drawn a line in the scope of its military cooperation with Japan. 

"I don't think it is appropriate to develop the cooperation to the level of a (trilateral) military alliance," President Moon Jae-in said an interview with Singapore's Channel NewsAsia on Friday. "The cooperation is (specifically) aimed at countering North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations."

"While the US is our ally, Japan is not," Moon was quoted as saying by an anonymous senior presidential aide who relayed it to Yonhap News Agency on Sunday.

But there has been an obstacle for improving ties. South Korea believes Japan has yet to fully atone for its colonial atrocities and worries about its military expansion. "If Japan uses a nuclear-armed North Korea as an excuse for its military expansion, it would not be appropriate for ASEAN nations as well," Moon told Channel NewsAsia, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose members also suffered under Imperial Japan.