From the intensifying threat from North Korea to a festering feud with Japan, President-elect Park Geun-hye faces a string of foreign policy challenges which will put her much-touted doctrine of “trustpolitik” to an early test.

The conservative politician will take office on Feb. 25 for a five-year term, inheriting a bleak diplomatic and security landscape bequeathed by incumbent Lee Myung-bak.

Inter-Korean relations spiraled downward over the past five years due to Pyongyang’s arms buildup and Seoul’s hardline stance. Intensifying nationalism in Korea, China and Japan is threatening to raise tensions in Northeast Asia.

The competition between the U.S. and China is increasing geopolitical uncertainty in the region and posing a potential dilemma to Seoul’s new government.

“The next administration will face the most difficult external environment in the 21st century,” the state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said Thursday in its outlook for 2013-2017’s world politics.

As underlying factors, the report cited a shifting balance of power in line with China’s growing clout and weakening U.S. hegemony, persisting economic uncertainty, changing norms of global governance, and deepening exclusive regionalism.

“On the Korean Peninsula, the nature of North Korea’s challenge will become more serious, complex and diverse than in the past. But relevant countries will demonstrate significant differences in solving the issue though they agree in principle on the need for peace and stability,” said the think tank under the Korea National Diplomatic Academy run by the Foreign Ministry.

North Korea

In dealing with North Korea, Park has promised to balance engagement and deterrence in what she calls “trustpolitik and alignment.”

In her contribution to the journal Foreign Affairs in September 2011, she proclaimed the policy of trustpolitik, calling for the establishment of “mutually binding expectations based on global norms” between the two countries.

The doctrine is claimed to be based on lessons from past governments’ failure to engage or contain Pyongyang.

“The ones that have emphasized accommodation and inter-Korean solidarity have placed inordinate hope in the idea that if the South provided sustained assistance to the North, the North would abandon its bellicose strategy toward the South. But after years of such attempts, no fundamental change has come,” she wrote.

“Meanwhile, the governments in Seoul that have placed a greater emphasis on pressuring North Korea have not been able to influence its behavior in a meaningful way, either.”

She called for a new policy that involves aligning South Korea’s security with its cooperation with the North, and inter-Korean dialogue with parallel international efforts.

“An alignment policy would entail assuming a tough line against North Korea sometimes and a flexible policy open to negotiations other times,” she said.

But North Korea’s rocket launch before the election and an expected further provocation indicate that practicing the dual-track approach will be a tough balancing act.

The communist state successfully launched a long-range rocket on Dec. 12, drawing international condemnation for what is deemed a cover for a ballistic missile test.

Seoul and Washington are now pushing for a fresh set of sanctions to choke its revenue sources, as China remains opposed in the U.N. Security Council to proposed international punishment.

North Korea is widely expected to go ahead with additional hostile acts around the time the Park administration sets sail, as it did in the past to test and tame new governments in Seoul.

New satellite images showed on Friday that the regime has repaired flood damage at its atomic test site and appears technically ready for another detonation.

Against this backdrop, many experts are not optimistic for an improvement in inter-Korean ties despite her pronounced desire for reconciliation.

In her first policy address, on Dec. 20, after the election, she hardened her rhetoric against the North’s rocket test.

“The launch of North Korea’s long-range missile symbolically showed how grave the security situation facing us is,” she said.

“I will keep the promise to open a new era on the Korean Peninsula, based on strong security and trust-based diplomacy.”

Some analysts expect that the president-elect’s policy could veer more easily toward Lee’s reciprocal, conditions-laden approach that has been blamed for the protracted chill between the two neighbors.

In addition, her plan rejects unconditional assistance and urges the North to meet prior commitments on denuclearization such as the one made in a July 4, 1972 joint statement.

“While Park’s approach offers front-end economic benefits to the North and promotes the need for greater inter-Korean dialogue, her conditional approach to denuclearization is conceptually similar to the current policy embraced by both Seoul and Washington,” Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently.

Japanese nationalism

Park is also expected to wrestle with Japan’s rightward shift, which is expected to exacerbate the tricky historical and territorial issues between the two countries.

Tension reached a fresh high in August 2012 when Lee made the first visit by any Korean president to the easternmost islets of Dokdo, which Japan claims as its territory.

While stressing brisk economic and cultural exchanges between the two countries, Park has vowed a stern response in territorial and historical rows.

In her address on Dec. 20, she pledged efforts for reconciliation, cooperation and peace in Northeast Asia, adding that regional trust and stability should be based on “a correct historical perception.” She ruled out any negotiations with Japan on the issue of Dokdo.

After a sweeping election win, Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of the conservative Liberty Democratic Party launched a new Cabinet last week with some hawks and nationalists, fanning concerns over the country’s drastic shift to the right.

Abe’s pledges include amending the country’s pacifist constitution to increase defense spending and the use of its Self Defense Forces; visiting the Yasukuni Shrine revering Class-A war criminals; rewriting a landmark 1993 apology for war crimes; and holding a nationwide Takeshima Day to celebrate Dokdo.

“There’s room for self-restraint as the U.S. wouldn’t want to see its two allies clash over historical issues at a time when trilateral cooperation is extremely important,” said Jin Chang-soo, a senior researcher at the private Sejong Institute.

“Still, there are many factors that could worsen bilateral relations. Abe has made too many campaign promises and there’s pressure from other right-leaning coalition parties with which he has gained lots of votes.”

Apparently wary of Tokyo’s rightward drift, Park turned down last week a visit by Abe’s special envoys due to her “tight schedule.” They will instead meet on Friday.

“Koreans have a memory that their country’s colonization began with Japan’s seizure of Dokdo in 1905,” Park said.

“I’d like Japan as a friendly nation of Korea’s to look squarely at this for the sound development of the two countries’ relations.”

U.S.-China rivalry

In a broader geopolitical theater, the new president will have to walk a tightrope along with the changing power structure of East Asia stemming from the intensifying rivalry between the U.S. and China.

Seoul is required to play a bigger role in a reconfiguration of the U.S. alliance system in the Asia Pacific which the Obama administration pursues in its ongoing strategic “pivot” to the region.

In case the two great powers’ rivalry escalates, a deeper involvement in the U.S.-centered axis would put Seoul in a tricky situation.

For the South, the U.S. is the mainstay of national security and deterrence against the North.

China is already one of Seoul’s top trade, tourism and investment partners and a key stakeholder in multilateral talks aimed at disarming Pyongyang.

Park is seeking to strengthen Seoul’s alliance with Washington and at the same time stress the growing importance of the partnership with Beijing.

“I do not believe that a rising China and America’s pivot to Asia are mutually exclusive,” she wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month.

“Both Korea and Japan maintain critical alliances with the United States while simultaneously sustaining closer cooperative partnerships with China. Our ties with these two powers are not premised on choosing one over the other.”

After their own political transitions, no drastic change appears imminent in the two countries’ respective policy toward the Peninsula.

U.S. President Barack Obama phoned Park last week to congratulate her on her election victory and reaffirm the significance of the alliance as a “linchpin” of peace and security on the peninsula and in the region.

Chinese leader Hu Jintao and his successor Xi Jinping sent her a congratulatory cable and vowed efforts for the continuous development of bilateral relations.

Park will try not to repeat her predecessors’ mistakes. Former President Roh Moo-hyun failed in his attempt at a balancing act between the two powers, whereas U.S.-friendly Lee has sometimes estranged Beijing’s top brass.

“China and South Korea share obvious cultural similarities, and their sheer proximity means that Seoul and Beijing will inevitably engage on many issues ― most importantly, the fate of North Korea,” Robert Kelly, an associate professor of international relations at Pusan National University, wrote recently in Foreign Affairs.

“All this means that, for South Korea, relations with China are now arguably as important as those with the U.S.”

Middle power diplomacy

Invigorated by Seoul’s newly defined foray into the international community, the president-elect is also aiming to shore up national prestige and boost its role in multilateral efforts regarding peace, climate change, development and other global problems.

Park’s “attractive Korea” entails greater public participation in foreign affairs, broader opportunities for young Koreans to take part in development programs, more overseas Korean language schools, and support for cultural exports.

She also wants to scale up official development assistance and house at least five more international organizations here. Also high on the agenda are expanded partnerships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India, Australia and other countries.

On Tuesday, South Korea officially began its two-year stint as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. The country is expected to wield a greater influence on issues like international sanctions, military action and peacekeeping operations.

The government is also looking to forge cooperation between middle powers on such subjects as climate change, development, terrorism and human rights.

Although Seoul has been a middle power for the past two decades, its geopolitical position and volatile security environment have driven the country to focus on its alliance with the U.S. at the expense of its greater participation in multilateral diplomacy, said Lee Sook-jong, president of the private East Asia Institute and a Sungkyunkwan University professor.

“These two diplomatic efforts can be linked well when Washington supports Seoul’s intention behind its middle power diplomacy and China recognizes South Korea’s influence in the region positively,” Lee said in a recent analysis.

“Whether South Korea can overcome this dilemma through complex networks with other middle powers will be a great diplomatic challenge.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)