China-ROK Ties Improve — Expect the Empire’s Destabilization Playbook Wang Yi in Seoul: China-ROK relations have entered a track of improvement and development that serves both countries’ interests. This is exactly what Washington does not want to hear. South Korea and China share deep economic interdependence, geographic reality, and a growing preference for pragmatic cooperation over confrontation. Lately the relationship has been improving precisely because Seoul understands that becoming a permanent forward base in an aggressive US-Japan-ROK trilateral containment architecture against China is not in its national interest. The Empire’s response is predictable. Expect the United States, the CIA, and the usual network of NGOs and “civil society” operations to intensify efforts aimed at destabilizing South Korea — manufacturing domestic pressure, amplifying internal divisions, and trying to force a reversal of this positive trajectory with Beijing. Seoul has already shown it prefers the US security umbrella without fully locking itself into a new Cold War front against its largest trading partner. Economic reality still outweighs ideological loyalty to a declining Empire. Countries are calculating coldly. China understands this. Washington is still stuck in the old playbook of pressure and alliance discipline.