A test for China-South Korea relations

While the reasons for her impeachment were domestic – a massive corruption and influence-peddling scandal – China’s interest centres around her decision to allow the United States to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile shield.

Thirty-nine retail stores for Lotte – the South Korean company that has granted land for THAAD – have been shut for failing local inspections, while a major Lotte resort project in the north-eastern city of Shenyang has also been suspended.

China is adamantly against the THAAD deployment on the Korean Peninsula.

According to Voice of America, the House resolution calls for the prompt deployment of the US missile defense system. “It will take time, but I believe the truth will be revealed”. A retired Chinese general has gone to the extent of urging Beijing to “conduct a surgical hard-kill operation that would destroy the target, paralysing it”, that is, a pre-emptive attack on Thaad on South Korean soil before it becomes fully functional.

The Chinese and Russian governments have objected to the installation of the missile-defense system because it employs powerful radar technology that the two countries assert can see into their territories.

THAAD forces China to develop new missiles system and make new deterrence, bringing new arms race, when North Korea possesses deadly nuclear weapons and warheads.

Some in Beijing confessed that the hard-line opposition to Thaad by the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department created a trap from which the Chinese leadership could not escape, leaving only the course of collision with Korea.

Despite this executive-branch policy vacuum, the United States government views North Korea’s recent missile tests as a major threat. But commercial flights don’t easily align with Tillerson’s schedule, making such coverage more hard. A poem shared widely on Chinese social media complains about the pressure to criticize other countries.

South Korea does not have firm evidence that China has retaliated for Seoul’s deployment of a USA missile defense system, so no action has been taken against Beijing, South Korea’s finance minister said on Monday. Relations between China and North Korea are at their worst in recent memory because of the repeated military tests.

Moon and his liberal partners are especially anxious about a new antimissile shield the Americans are installing in South Korea, citing China’s fury over it and warning of a standoff reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner.

“China”, stated the editorial, “often acts like a spoiled child, doing whatever it takes to get what it wants”.

The announcement came a week after North Korea shot off four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, and while the US and South Korea are conducting their annual joint military exercises.

In an underground shopping market popular with tourists in central Seoul, few Chinese visitors were visible, and locals agreed that numbers had fallen, even if they were split over the actual effectiveness of the alleged ban. “Beijing’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, suggested that diplomatic ties with Korea should be scaled back”. He’s also called for recognition of Kim Jong-un as North Korea’s leader. But this sort of tool is what Korea needs to pre-empt a possible crisis to be prompted by a set of external risks – a toughened environment for Korean businesses in China whose economy is slowing, a continuous rise in U.S. interest rates and growing military threats from Pyongyang.

Xiaoxiong Yi is director of Marietta College’s China Program.