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| THAAD Launch Vehicle (File Photo) |
China is working hard to prevent the deployment in South Korea of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense also known as THAAD, a highly effective anti-missile system to intercept North Korean and Chinese missiles, Bill Gertz, senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote on March 9.
China's president, Xi Jinping, is understood to have offered South Korea more trade and business opportunities in return for the Park Geun-hye administration relinquishing the idea of allowing the US to deploy the THAAD system to the Korean peninsula. In addition, Beijing is pressuring the Park administration to allow Chinese telecom equipment supplier Huawei to bid for telecom infrastructure projects in South Korea. Huawei has been blocked from securing contracts in the United States over fears that its network equipment could be used for espionage, fears the company says are unfounded.
Kim Min-seok, spokesperson for the South Korean defense ministry, openly declared that the nation has no plan to acquire the THAAD system from the United States during a press conference held on March 9. "Basically, the system would be good to better defend the country from missiles from North Korea, but we will make a judgment by putting the national interest as our top priority," Kim was quoted as saying by the Sputnik News based in Moscow. "We will establish an MD system of our own against North Korea's ballistic missiles by developing L-SAM and M-SAM surface-to-air missiles," Kim said.
Read the full story at Want China Times