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FILE - In this July 4, 2014 file photo, Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and South Korean President Park Geun-hye attend the Korea China Investment Forum at a hotel in Seoul, South Korea. Moscow is cozying up to its old rival China. China is holding hands with Seoul. Tokyo is striking deals with Pyongyang. In the ever-shifting game of Asian alliances, where just about everybody has a dispute over something or can actually remember a shooting war with their neighbors, past grudges run deep. But expedience and pragmatism often run deeper. (AP Photo/Kim Hong-ji, Pool, File)

TOKYO (AP) — Moscow is cozying up to its old rival China. China is holding hands with Seoul. Tokyo is striking deals with Pyongyang.


While U.S. President Barack Obama tries to develop his pivot to Asia policy, the region is rapidly spinning ahead in its own direction, energized by dynamic economies, expanding trade relations and a plethora of longstanding disputes and rivalries.






"They are not in a clear alliance, and have a number of diverging, even partially colliding, interests. But they both challenge the global order in which the United States is the norm-setter and the sole arbiter," he wrote. "The Chinese do this in a much subtler way than the Russians, but both appear to have come to the conclusion that working one's way into the U.S.-dominated system is not worth it."



"A strong Russian-Chinese connection has taken shape on the international arena. It is based on a coincidence of views on both global processes and key regional issues," Putin said earlier this month.


"The unique position that the United States has held since the 1990s as the dominant power in Eurasia is now history," Trenin concluded.



Here's a puzzle.

Why would the president of China, North Korea's closest thing to an ally, snub Kim Jong Un and go to Seoul to woo his archrival, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, which he did to many a raised eyebrow last week?

Fact is, China isn't getting a lot of love from its Asian neighbors these days.

Major trading partner Japan is outraged over what it sees as China's increasingly assertive claim to a set of small, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. Vietnam and the Philippines have similar beefs over islands in the South China Sea. North Korea, though still reliant on Chinese aid, trade and political backing on the international stage, continues to develop nuclear weapons, and sidle up to Moscow, regardless of Beijing's grumblings.

So, while recalibrating its own relations with Moscow, why not try to sneak a kiss from one of Washington's better friends?




"Obviously, (the South Koreans) are never going to break away from their alliance with the U.S.," he said. But he added that China has been "trying to convince the South that they, and not the alliance with the U.S. and Japan, are the key to Seoul's North Korea problem."

Increasingly, that is seen as a persuasive argument — China's rise has unmistakably changed the power equation in Asia. Seen in that way, Johnson says, Beijing's choice of Seoul over Pyongyang makes perfect strategic sense.

"Different tactics, different approaches for different partners," Johnson said.





Breaking ranks with Washington and Seoul, hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has revived bilateral negotiations with North Korea over the matter of Japanese abductees in the North. The issue is of key interest to the Japanese public but decidedly back-burner to Japan's allies, who would prefer to isolate the North over its nuclear weapons policy.


"Countries in the region are increasingly concerned about tension over China's high-handed approach, and showing high expectations for Japan's role," said Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. "Previously, Japan could have said, 'We cannot contribute to the region because we cannot exercise the right to collective self-defense.' Japan now has lost that excuse."



For those who can't throw their weight around like Moscow, Beijing or Washington, India has some words of wisdom — hedge your bets.


"It's a frenemy kind of relationship," said Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs in New Delhi. "Everyone is a frenemy to everyone else. It's a much more complex world. No one can clearly say 'I'm an ally of so-and-so.'


India has more potential to be a major player than most in Asia, and good cause for worry about China. Its main concern — shared in many Asian capitals — is whether the Chinese military will become so mighty that Beijing can effectively dictate orders. India's most obvious partner in this is Japan, and the two have always been friendly.

"India wants to counterbalance China to some extent. India believes that will give it some breathing space strategically," Chaulia said.

"Despite its apparent political stability, China is a powder keg with no outlets for expression and an authoritarian regime," he said, echoing a concern held widely throughout Asia. "It could remain stable and keep on growing, as everyone seems to assume it will. But if it becomes unstable, it will have a huge effect on the region."


AP writers Jack Chang in Beijing, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Katy Daigle in Delhi and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.