The front-page picture in Korean newspapers told the story of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
South Korea's President Park Geun Hye, looking frosty and gazing in the opposite direction, ignored Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe standing next to her at the October 7 APEC in Bali. The two leaders barely exchanged greetings, according to a Japanese news dispatch, and kept their contact to a minimum, "only for a few seconds."
The awkward encounter was emblematic of widening gulf between two crucial East Asian neighbors, unable to settle age-old differences over past history, even as their security environment worsens with China's territorial assertiveness and North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.
But it was not just bilateral issues dividing them. Broadening US security ties with Japan is fueling resentment in South Korea that the US is eroding Seoul's strategic options by beefing up Japan. The October 3 US-Japanese agreement to revise their defense cooperation guidelines next year has raised the specter of Washington drastically strengthening Japan's independent military capability. This prompts concerns in Seoul that Japan, an ancient foe, may assume greater responsibility for regional defense on behalf of the United States. South Korea analysts fear that their country might once again become the proverbial shrimp caught between two Asian whales - Japan and China.
Such a prospect evokes unpalatable memories of Japanese invasions, occupation and brutalities - smack in the face of nuclear threats from the North. Increased Japanese responsibility not only augurs negatively for Seoul's independent strategic space but interferes with Seoul's attempt to forge stronger ties with China and use Beijing's leverage in containing North Korea's nuclear capability.
The US is shifting more responsibility to South Korea, too.
During his four-day trip to Seoul for assessment of North Korea's military capability, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced a series of steps that would bolster the bilateral military alliance. His visit came against the backdrop of increasing US commitment for the defense of South Korea, which hosts 28,500 US troops. In their assessment of South Korean capability, Hagel and Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin came close to agreement on delaying the transfer of command authority of the combined forces to a Korean general in 2015. They also signed a new "strategic framework" authorizing what Korean officials described as "preemptive attack" on the North's nuclear facility in the event of a nuclear or missile attack against the South.
Then, Hagel traveled to Tokyo on October 3. Joined by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hagel signed an agreement calling for revision of the US-Japan Defense Cooperation guidelines next year. The Obama administration did not consult Seoul on the decision to beef up the Japanese military capability. The angst in Seoul was exacerbated by the fact that the agreement came in the midst of the Abe government seeking what it called collective self-defense, which would allow Japan to consider an attack on its ally as attack on itself. That not only would make Japan a significant military force in the region, it would necessarily involve reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution that prohibits its rearmament.
