Yes, interesting RP - couldn;t really see this coming.
Australia has been practicing exercises against a ficticious Chinese threat (per 60 mins few months back). Obama takes 34 (34!!!!) naval vessels with him to India - so you can bet they are closer to the Asia's still than home.
Korea is another left over from WW2 - east/west Germany scenario - some loose threads yet to be tidied up ... or an excuse to start something.
Some history - The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year colonial rule of Korea (The peninsula was governed by the Korean Empire until it was annexed by Japan following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905).
In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily occupy the country as a trusteeship with the zone of control demarcated along the 38th parallel. The purpose of this trusteeship was to establish a Korean provisional government which would become "free and independent in due course."[1] Though elections were scheduled, the two superpowers backed different leaders and two states were effectively established, each of which claimed sovereignty over the whole Korean peninsula.
In 2002, United States president George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" and an "outpost of tyranny".
[that last brainstorm is not really going to help matters is it?]
