It's important from a strategic standpoint to develop the relationship. This is part of the "pivot to Asia" policy, which we deny is containment... but which in essence is to counter the PRC's sea island and economic expansion.
India, Australia, Vietnam, Japan and S. Korea are all central to this effort. Given NK's habitual belligerency and irrational leadership; and China now pumping its military budget up to 224-billion, and its leader, Xi, consolidating his power for the long term...cementing our relationships with old allies and making new ones is smart policy.
Personally, I don't have a problem with it. I may have left my blood, my brothers and a good part of my youth in that country, but I don't let it cloud my view of strategic dispositions decades later.