US Army chief visits China amid missile system tensions

Chinese state media have published daily attacks against the US and South Korea, and China has cancelled events involving South Korean entertainers.

The first THAAD battery in South Korea will be installed at Seongju, where residents have protested the decision.

A decision by the United States and South Korea to deploy an advanced anti-missile defense 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.

Since then, residents have protested THAAD’s deployment, citing safety fears over the system’s sophisticated radar, its potential to be a wartime target, and concerns about health and environmental effects.

In her speech during the 71st-anniversary celebration of South Korea’s Liberation Day on Monday, South Korea President Park Geun-Hye defended her stand to deploy a USA -operated missile defense system claiming that the action would protect the Korean people.

“THAAD should not be deployed at all, not just in Seongju, but anywhere in South Korea”, said Yoo Ji-Won, a 63-year-old farmer.

A South Korean military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told the Donga the Hyeonmu missiles are to form a part of Kill Chain, a pre-emptive strike system being built for South Korea’s defense.

China’s Foreign Ministry has strongly criticized the decision to deploy the system.

Tensions are expected to rise again when the South launches an annual joint military exercise with the United States later this month. “The Chinese side will consider taking necessary steps to maintain national strategic security and regional strategic balance”, it said in a statement.

President Park in her speech, however, added a new emphasis on addressing widespread human rights abuses in North Korea. Notably, the Kaesong Industrial Complex was closed in February, suspending one of the few symbols of inter-Korean cooperation.

The U.N. sanctions do not directly address North Korean human rights abuses, but additional USA sanctions imposed in July do target individuals for their role in serious human rights violations, hunting down defectors or censorship in North Korea.

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.