China lodged protests with US and South Korean ambassadors on Friday over their countries’ decision to deploy an American missile defense system to counter threats from North Korea, a move Beijing said would damage regional security.
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The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system demonstrates strong opposition to North Korea’s nuclear and missile development, including its launch of the Musudan mid-range ballistic missile, said South Korea Defense Ministry official Ryu Je-seung.
The announcement came despite repeated oppositions from China and Russian Federation, which have opposed to the THAAD deployment on the Korean peninsula as the US missile defense system far exceeds South Korea’s actual defense needs and would directly threaten the strategic security of the two countries.
“And that of our people from North Korea’s nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile threats”.
South Korea and Washington have been in talks about deploying the anti-missile defence system since Kim Jong Un’s regime conducted a nuclear test in January and then followed it up with several ballistic missile tests in violation of a United Nation’s resolution banning them.
“It will be focused exclusively on North Korean nuclear and missile threats and would not be directed towards any third party nations”, Yoo said at a joint press conference attended by US and South Korean officials.
A report on 38 North, a website run by the U.S. -Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., said in May that North Korea’s submarine-launched ballistic missile program is making progress, but it appeared that the first ballistic missile submarine and operational missiles are unlikely to become operational before 2020.
The THAAD deployment, the release said, will contribute to a layered missile defense that will enhance the alliance’s existing missile defense capabilities against North Korean missile threats.
China has also said that deploying the missile defense system could lead to an arms race on the Peninsula.
The first THAAD battery – and now the only deployed system – was set up expediently in Guam several years ago to protect U.S. forces and allies in response to North Korean aggression. As the two have the same hardware, the terminal mode, which South Korea allegedly plans to adopt, can be transformed into the radar with a much longer detectable range.
China condemned the move, with Hong telling a briefing Thursday that it opposed “public pressure, confrontation and one country’s imposing unilateral sanctions on another country by citing domestic laws”.
Michael Elleman, a contributor to Washington-based North Korea monitoring project 38 North, cautioned that the system would not offer absolute protection against a North Korean attack as Pyongyang would likely develop counter-measures, such as by launching missiles in salvos to overwhelm the defenses.
But the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, reiterated Beijing’s worries over the THAAD deployment when he met Barack Obama on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Washington in late March.
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Also on Thursday, a USA official said the administration of President Barack Obama is asking other nations to cut the employment of North Korean workers as a way to reduce Pyongyang’s access to foreign currency. “It will cause inconvenience in terms of trade, making it hard, for example, for South Korea products hard to pass inspections”, he said.
