South Korea Ready to Consider Alternative Site for US THAAD System
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Aug 19, 2016
Beijing is also opposed to the move, seeing it as a United States bid to flex its military muscle in the region and undermine China's own missile capabilities. They had their heads shaved to express their strong disagreement with the authorities' plans.
It is part of his August 15-23 trip to South Korea, China, Japan and Hawaii to visit his Asian counterparts, senior officials and US Pacific Command leaders.
But while Xi could deliver on history, he failed to provide President Park with what she wanted as far as curbing North Korea's continued erratic behavior.
South Korea, which argues that the system is a necessary counter to a unsafe North Korea, believes China is retaliating by restricting cultural exchanges and visa issuance.
BEIJING-The U.S. Army's top general, on a swing through Asia this week, stopped here to meet his counterpart and assure the Chinese military that a deployment of a controversial missile defense system in South Korea didn't amount to a threat to China.
Beijing has taken a decidedly different view, however, seeing THAAD as not just a response to North Korean missile launches but as a not very veiled means to contain a Chinese military build-up.
Pyongyang also said in the statement issued on Uriminzokkiri, a propaganda outlet targeting South Koreans, its nuclear weapons are not meant to divide the Korean people, and that its development is "benefiting the South Koreans".
The South's government estimates that Pyongyang rakes in around US$10 million every year from about 130 restaurants it operates - with mostly North Korean staff - in 12 countries including neighbouring China. "As soon as they have one test that they could classify as an extreme success, then we are talking a whole different ballgame (in) their potential to threaten other sovereign nations in their area but also potentially parts of the United States".
The chief of the Military-Political Studies Center at the Moscow institute of worldwide relations MGIMO, Aleksey Podberyozkin, recalls that North Korea has no inter-continental missiles and Pyongyang is unable to threaten the United States. "Obviously, they are meant for Russian Federation".
The THAAD issue has also been a target of domestic criticism, particularly from those living in the rural South Korean county of Seongju where the first battery will be installed.
