Gen. Mark A. Milley, the 39th US Army chief of staff, is scheduled to hold a meeting with South Korea’s Army Chief of Staff Jang Jun-kyu on Friday, an Army official said.
Advertisement
Park did not specifically refer to the opposition and veiled threats of economic retaliation from China over the U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system South Korea recently agreed to deploy.
South Korean President Park Geun-Hye on Monday urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapon programme and defended the deployment of a USA anti-missile system in the face of repeated “provocations” by Pyongyang. China’s Defense Ministry has already said it will consider measures to counter it.
The South Korean president, in her speech Monday, asked critics of the plan to deploy THAAD to present an alternative: “If there is another way to protect our country and people, the alternative must be presented”, she said.
“We don’t defend against China as a threat”, he said in the interview at Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff building, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
North Korea’s government-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday said that the country was ready to deliver a pre-emptive strike against United States armed forces in case of provocative actions in the Asia-Pacific Region.
News of the SM-3s comes in tandem with a deployment of U.S. Army Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense systems to mainland South Korea.
I believe Beijing is pretty unlikely to do so, not only because it will have very little effect on the outcome as far as the THAAD deployment is concerned, but also because it might just backfire and further alienate South Korea and reinforce the notion preached by “Sinoskeptics” in Seoul that China is not a reliable ally.
Milley’s visit to China is the first leg of his nine-day trip that also includes visits to South Korea, Japan, and Hawaii.
Beijing is also opposed to the move, seeing it as a United States bid to flex its military muscle in the region and undermine China’s own missile capabilities. However, protesters continued their show of defiance to the decision, voicing concerns over the perceived cancer risk – owing to the system’s powerful radar – and the THAAD system becoming a wartime target should an enemy choose to strike.
Advertisement
The statement further explained, “Gen. Milley also reaffirmed the US commitment to adhere to worldwide rules and standards and encouraged the Chinese to do the same as a way of reducing regional tensions”. With the USA and South Korea set to hold joint military drills in the coming weeks – an exercise that is dubbed by the North as a rehearsal for actual war – the Korean peninsula is bound to be heading for more volatile times.
