Chief of Staff of the US Army, Mark A. Milley, told to People’s Liberation Army counterpart Li Zuocheng that, THAAD was a self-protective measure, the US Army said in a statement released by the US Embassy in Beijing.
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In his opening speech, the policymaker said the decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in Seongju, 296 kilometers southeast of Seoul, by the end of 2017 was inevitable as the county’s location was optimal to defend against ever-increasing nuclear and missile threats from the North.
He insisted the powerful missile defense system is not meant to track missles inside China but to defend attacks from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It claims that the systems, specifically it powerful “X-band” radar, can be used to monitor China’s airspace and its advanced radar system. However, the two ally countries persistently deny these allegations and stressed that the system is purely defensive and created to cope with the military threats from North Korea.
Gen Milley said the United States wants to maintain open channels of communications with China’s military to “reduce the risk of crisis or miscalculation and candidly address differences”, the statement said.
Gen Milley “reaffirmed the USA commitment to adhere to global rules and standards and encouraged the Chinese to do the same as a way to reduce regional tensions”. “Gen. Milley also discussed ways to deepen practical cooperation between the U.S. Army and the PLA in areas like humanitarian assistance and disaster response”.
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 USA officer said in Beijing on Tuesday (Aug 16).
On Thursday, the anniversary of the incident, the Korean People’s Army Panmunjom Mission spokesman said that North Korea will “never forget the Panmunjom incident, which took place intentionally under US imperialists looking for an excuse to start a war of invasion while permanently occupying the South”.
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Beijing is also opposed to the move, seeing it as a USA bid to flex its military muscle in the region and undermine China’s own missile capabilities.
