[UPDATES] Rocket launch sparks diplomatic row over US missile defense

By Park Sae-jin Posted : February 7, 2016, 16:42 Updated : February 8, 2016, 12:50

[Captured from Pentagon home page]


North Korea's defiant rocket launch has sparked a fresh diplomatic row over the suggested deployment of a US missile defense system in South Korea, a sensitive issue which has irritated China.

Alarmed by Pyongyang's dauntless push for nuclear and missile programs, Seoul and Washington agreed Sunday to start official talks on deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean peninsula..

South Korea said clearly that the system would be used only to deter North Korea's missile threat.

But China expressed concern and summoned South Korean ambassador to China, Kim Jang-soo, to lodge representations over Seoul's decision.

Some 28,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea. They have already conducted "informal studies" to find suitable sites for a possible THAAD deployment.

Washington insists the THAAD system is a deterrent necessitated by the North's advancing ballistic missile program, while China and Russia argue that it would undermine stability and could trigger an arms race in a delicately balanced region.

Before Sunday's launch, South Korea had been ambivalent on the issue, as it seeks to balance the strategic priorities of its main military ally, the United States, against those of its biggest trade partner, China.

China and Russia are North Korea's only significant diplomatic protectors, although both have signaled growing impatience with Pyongyang's refusal to rein in its nuclear weapons program.

Yoon Suk-joon, a researcher of the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, said in a recent article carried by the magazine Diplomat that China may well see a THAAD battery as an apparent provocation as it would imply that South Korea is part of the US Ballistic Missile Defense.

"Moreover, operating THAAD in South Korea represents an explicit threat to China’s asymmetric Anti-Access/Area Denial strategy, which aims to exclude forwarded US forces from the so-called first island chain," he said.

"So China could interpret THAAD deployment by South Korea as a major military posture by the US intended to neutralize China’s strategy."

Yoon, however, suggested that Beijing should take up the issue directly with Washington and refrain from pressing Seoul to oppose it.

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