South Korea’s foreign policy faces a test as signs of a thaw in China-Japan relations and North Korea’s surprise release of U.S. detainees threaten to weaken its diplomatic leverage and reduce strategic options.

Nearly two years into her presidency, President Park Geun-hye is coming under increasing pressure to turn her diplomatic credentials into a feat.

But her “principled” approach to relations with Japan and North Korea has so far failed to induce any meaningful change from either side. Instead, it appears to have eroded its own leeway by aggravating nationalist sentiment at home, while the neighbors brandish more flexible, pragmatic tactics to serve their interests.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held their first one-on-one talks on Monday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Beijing. 

Though a stone-faced Xi maintained a chilly attitude in front of the camera, the 30-minute meeting catered to Japan’s desire for a quieter East China Sea.

Abe called the meeting a “first step to the improvement of relations.”

Beijing, which was bound to accommodate Abe as the summit host anyway, has managed to extract a diplomatic coup by winning Tokyo’s consent to address historical and territorial rows in a statement.

In a four-point agreement, the sides agreed to “follow the spirit of squarely facing history” to overcome “political difficulties,” and recognized that they had “different views as to the emergence of tense situations in recent years in the waters of the East China Sea, including those around the Senkaku Islands.”

It was sealed last week in Beijing by Yang Jiechi, Chinese state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, and Shotaro Yachi, Abe’s national security adviser.

Seoul, meanwhile, has been pressing Tokyo to apologize and compensate for its enslavement of Korean women during World War II as a prerequisite for mending the relationship and a long-delayed summit.

Amid growing concerns over possible diplomatic “isolation,” the Park government sought to save face through a foreign ministers’ meeting with Japan and deputy ministerial trilateral dialogue that included China.

With Japan remaining steadfast toward historical issues, however, such efforts have backfired on South Korea, inviting accusations that it is offering too many concessions. After the government recently shelved plans to build evacuation facilities on the Dokdo islets, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties relayed criticism, calling the decision a “low-posture” diplomacy.

“Now time is on Japan’s side,” a Seoul official said on customary condition of anonymity. “But a bigger concern is that we may indeed shift our position in the face of pressure at a time when we truly need to stick to the principles and get going our way.”

Lee Jae-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said that the Xi-Abe summit is unlikely to bring about an immediate turnaround in their relations but could help defuse tension and foster the mood for future progress.

“If China and Japan show signs of improvement in their ties following the summit, South Korea may be put on the back burner in terms of the peace and stability issue in Northeast Asia and thus lose its strategic edge,” he said in an analysis.

“That would make it difficult for Seoul to keep turning its eyes away from a summit with Abe. So it will need to pursue one while developing the face-saving logics.”

Cross-border ties are another source of dilemma for Seoul especially in the wake of Pyongyang’s recent release of three U.S. captives.

Though Washington officials ruled out the possibility for a change in its North Korea policy, any sudden progress in their bilateral relations would shrink Seoul’s leverage and fuel criticism for its failure to sustain momentum for cross-border dialogue given a recent visit by top Pyongyang executives to the South and the lingering controversy over anti-North leaflets, observers say.

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