A decision by the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced anti-missile defence system is aimed at defending against North Korea’s missile threat and does not threaten China, a senior U.S. officer said in Beijing on Tuesday (Aug 16).
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Following his trip to China, Gen. Milley will travel to South Korea to meet with U.S. Army troops and hold discussions with Korean military leaders on the THAAD deployment and other issues.
“Certainly the Russians and the Chinese and other stakeholders understand that in South Korea besides being a wonderful ally, significant economic engine for growth throughout the world, that there are tens of thousands of American citizens living there, there is still United States forces there, they are playing a defense role and they are at risk everyday to a host of threats that now include the potential for ballistic missile carried weapons of mass destruction”, Gen. Jacoby said during a July 13, Hudson Institute discussion on U.S. missile-technology preeminence.
Milley will also visit the PLA’s Academy of Military Science.
China has objected strenuously to a decision to base the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system south of the South Korean capital Seoul, believing it’s X-Band radar is meant to track missiles inside China.
Beijing has claimed that THAAD, especially its powerful “X-band” radar, can be used against it, despite repeated assurances from the USA and the South that the system is purely defensive and designed only to cope with North Korean threats. They fear that the town will become a wartime target of North Korea, and also that China have expressed anger over the plans. China angrily rejected the verdict and has vowed to continue developing man-made islands which the USA says have exacerbated tensions in the strategically crucial region.
The statement further explained, “Gen. Milley also reaffirmed the USA commitment to adhere to worldwide rules and standards and encouraged the Chinese to do the same as a way of reducing regional tensions”.
Tensions have also spiked in recent days between China and Japan over a chain of uninhabited islands controlled by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.
High on the agenda of Gen. Milley’s visit will be the deployment to South Korea in 2017 of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), an anti-ballistic missile system created to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase using a hit-to-kill warhead.
Yonhap News Agency and other media reported that one South Korean travel industry insider said that since August Beijing has started to tighten multiple-entry business visa requirements for South Koreans, requiring the submission of invitation letters from Chinese corporations.
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