Korea-China Defense Ministers to Engage in Tense Talks Over 'THAAD'?

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] The defense ministers of South Korea and China are expected to engage in a tense exchange over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system after meeting for the first time in two years and seven months.

According to the Ministry of National Defense on the 8th, Defense Minister Lee Jong-seop will attend the 19th Asia Security Conference (commonly known as the Shangri-La Dialogue) held in Singapore for three days starting on the 10th. The Shangri-La Dialogue is hosted by the UK’s International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and this year’s event includes a scheduled meeting with Wei Fenghe, China’s Minister of National Defense.

If the South Korean and Chinese defense ministers meet, it will be their first meeting since the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) held in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2019.

Both South Korea and China are emphasizing the maintenance of a “friendly relationship” this year, marking the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations, so they are expected to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula on the surface.

The Ministry of National Defense also announced that during the conference, it will hold bilateral talks between South Korea and the U.S., South Korea and China, trilateral talks among South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, as well as defense minister meetings with other major countries to discuss regional security situations including the Korean Peninsula and ways to expand bilateral defense cooperation with those countries. However, no bilateral talks will be held between South Korea and Japan.

The issue at hand is the THAAD deployment. The Yoon Seok-yeol administration has declared additional THAAD deployments, making friction with China inevitable. In particular, there is a strong possibility that the issue related to the U.S. military base in Seongju, Gyeongbuk Province, will be raised. This is because the South Korean government recently expressed its intention to “normalize” the THAAD base, which has been in a “temporary deployment” status for five years. The Ministry of National Defense is currently preparing to establish an evaluation committee to conduct a general environmental impact assessment of the THAAD base site in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment and the relevant local governments.

On the other hand, China has consistently claimed that THAAD poses a threat to its national security. In fact, China took various retaliatory measures against South Korea, such as the “Hanhanryeong” (限韓令, ban on Korean Wave), starting from the decision and actual deployment process of THAAD in 2016-17.

Meanwhile, about 40 countries including South Korea, the United States, Japan, China, Australia, and New Zealand are participating in this year’s conference. The Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and the Ukrainian Minister of Defense will also attend.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.