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A soldier passes in front of loudspeakers near the southern part of the DMZ in Yeoncheon

“North Korea is the one that defied international norms and carried out a nuclear test, yet South Korea is the one that is finding itself in a dilemma. I’m not sure how this happened.”

This was the assessment from a senior government official in Seoul on Jan. 15 regarding the Park Geun-hye administration’s diplomatic dilemma as it finds itself being battered over a recent agreement with Japan on Dec. 28 on the comfort women issue and a fourth nuclear test by North Korea earlier this month.

The first problem is the mounting military tensions between South and North Korea.

Since Seoul’s resumption of loudspeaker broadcasts into the North on Jan. 8, Pyongyang has responded by ratcheting up tensions with low-intensity moves such as playing its own broadcasts to the South, scattering leaflets, and sending drones over the DMZ. The South Korean military now finds itself hamstrung with any attempts to reduce tensions and prevent a clash - especially after a Jan. 13 New Year’s address in which Park laid out plans for increased psychological warfare tactics, calling the broadcasts “the surest and most effective means of psychological warfare.” The situation now is one where North Korea’s response could end up triggering a military clash, as happened last August.

Second, tensions and frictions with China over how to respond to the nuclear test remain high. The two sides recently held talks in Beijing on Jan. 14 between senior foreign ministry representatives to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, as well as a 15th working-level national defense policy meeting at the Ministry of National Defense in Seoul on Jan. 15. Speaking that day after the representatives’ meeting, South Korean Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Hwang Joon-kook said the two sides had agreed on a “clear response” to the test.

But the divisions seen in a previous 70-minute telephone conversation on Jan. 8 between South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi remain evident.

While Beijing has affirmed that it will take part in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions, Wang also reiterated China’s emphasis on the three principles of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, guarding its peace and stability and resolving issues through dialogue, a senior government official said. The situation is one where Seoul is demanding stiffer sanctions from Beijing, which is calling in turn for efforts to stabilize the political situation and attempt dialogue and negotiations.

Meanwhile, Park’s remarks on Jan. 13 about considering the possible deployment a Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean Peninsula have triggered a sense of alarm in Beijing, further compounding the tensions.

“When a country is trying to ensure its own security, it must consider the security and interests of other countries and regional peace and stability,” said Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Hong Lei in response.

“We hope this will be dealt with carefully [by Seoul],” Hong added.

Behind the diplomatic rhetoric was a message of opposition to a THAAD deployment.

The Global Times, the English-language newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily, printed an editorial on Jan. 15 titled “South Korean public shouldn’t blame China for North Korea doing what it wants,” in which it accused South Korea of “frequently following the US blindly even when its interests and those of the US do not agree.”

“If South Korea is demanding that China resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, it has taken the wrong position,” it continued. “Instead, it should be pressuring the US into relaxing its antagonisms with the North.”

The editorial’s frank message is that Seoul should be demanding dialogue from Washington instead of pressuring Beijing toward sanctions.

China’s representatives at the bilateral working-level national defense policy meeting in Seoul on Jan. 15 were also quoted by Ministry of National Defense sources as bristling over the question of why no hotline conversations took place between the South Korean and Chinese ministries after the nuclear test.

“China’s Defense Minister has never called another country over a North Korean nuclear test,” they were reported as saying.

Third, the agreement reached between the Park administration and the Shinzo Abe administration in Japan on a “final and irreversible resolution” on the comfort women issue is facing an increasingly intense backlash in both countries. On Jan. 14, Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Yoshitaka Sakurada, a former senior vice minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology in Japan, declared the comfort women to be “professional prostitutes.” The following day, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper printed what amounted to a call for the removal of the statue of a young girl symbolizing the victims that currently stands in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

In articles and editorials that day, the newspaper declared that the statue’s erection on a public road by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdaehyeop) was originally against the law, but that Park had not made the decision to issue a government order for its removal.

“Responsibility for executing the terms of the agreement weighs heavily on Park,” the newspaper insisted.

The reports suggest that the Japanese press is working to keep the issue alive just as calls for the statue’s removal or relocation from high-ranking government officials and politicians in Tokyo had seemed to be dying down.

Meanwhile, 383 groups in South Korea banded together on Jan. 14 to launch an organization called National Action for Nullification of the South Korea-Japan Military Comfort Women Agreement and a Just Resolution, with plans for a campaign to cancel the agreement and offer alternative resolutions on the issue.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter; Park Byong-su, senior staff reporter; and Gil Yun-hyung, Tokyo correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]