South Korean Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

according to Military.com South Korea Picks New Site for US Missile Defense System

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The board of South Korea's Lotte Group on Monday approved a land-swap agreement between its golf course in the Seongju County, where the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (

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) anti-missile system is set to be deployed, and a state-owned military site in Gyeonggi Province near Seoul. An official agreement between Lotte and the nation's military is due to be signed on Tuesday, and the South Korean military hopes to set up the missile shield by June at the earliest.

Because of the

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, a contention of will between Beijing and Seoul has emerged and retreat doesn't seem to be an option right now for either side. Given this, China might as well take any necessary actions and let South Korea bear the punishments which it once fancied it might be able to duck.

South Korea is the most prominent beneficiary of peace in Northeast Asia. Its development since Beijing and Seoul formally established diplomatic relations in 1992 pushed the country into the group of developed nations. But now it is acting willfully in deploying THAAD on its soil, betraying the cooperative logic in Northeast Asia, tying itself to the US chariot and turning into an arrogant pawn of Washington in the latter's military containment against China. From any perspective, adopting counterattacks toward Seoul is a must for Beijing.

For starters, Lotte Group's development in the Chinese market should come to an end. Offering land for the THAAD installation is not entirely Lotte's fault, yet Chinese society has neither the obligation nor interest to examine and distinguish what role Lotte has played in the undertaking. Showing Lotte the door will be an effective warning to all the other foreign forces that jeopardize China's national interests. This is the dignity China should have as a major power.

We also propose that Chinese society should coordinate voluntarily in expanding restrictions on South Korean cultural goods and entertainment exports to China, and block them when necessary. Let's see how far South Korean TV dramas and stars can go without strong support from the Chinese market.

The deployment of THAAD in South Korea marks a new round of strategic games between China, Russia and the US. In the contention over the Korean Peninsula, Seoul has turned itself into one player in a bigger game involving Beijing, Washington and Moscow. The risks THAAD will bring to South Korea are far more than any advantage it could have. History will prove how misguided South Korean policymakers are.

The THAAD installation is a mighty blow against strategic mutual trust between Beijing and Seoul. Ties will inevitably hit rock bottom, and this will be a loss for both sides. In the long-run, China needs to get ready to confront Seoul, which is helping the US to stab us in the back. Meanwhile, as long as China maintains its momentum of development and continues its all-round rise, Seoul will eventually realize its errors and mend its ways.

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American

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missile defense vehicles landed at Osan, South Korea today after almost eight months of waiting. Now the question is how

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and

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react.

Increasingly threatened by North Korean missiles — most recently test-launched just yesterday — the South agreed

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to host the US Army’s

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system. THAAD would provide an additional layer of protection on top of both the Army’s shorter-ranged, lower-altitude

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batteries already

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on the peninsula and the

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on

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offshore. (Pacific Command chief

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has argued forcefully for

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in his theater).

But THAAD’s greater range means batteries in South Korea can potentially shoot down, not just North Korean missiles, but planes in Chinese airspace. Experts we spoke to in 2015, after Beijing first raised this objection, said it was not a serious threat to China but rather a pretext for throwing wrenches in the US-Korean alliance — but in fact, Chinese pressure had been so heavy-handed it had

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rather than less.

Nevertheless, fear of a backlash from Beijing almost certainly slowed down deployment, with US officials repeatedly saying they were ready to deploy whenever Seoul gave the okay. (The ongoing

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of South Korea’s president hasn’t exactly accelerated decision-making, either). Beijing had recently

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on imports of South Korean pop culture, and Chinese hackers struck a South Korean conglomerate,

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, that had transferred land to the government to station THAAD on. On the other hand, Beijing is increasingly frustrated with its protégés in Pyongyang and recently announced it would

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, which would be a major blow to the Hermit Kingdom’s economy if actually enforced. With the THAAD deployment underway,

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will no doubt demand some stern protest, but it’s hard to say how much bite will be behind the bark.

That leaves North Korea, as predictably unpredictable as ever. The third-generation dictator Kim Jong-un had launched

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than his father Kim Jong-il did in 18 years. (Grandfather Kim Il-sung had no missiles to launch). His agents

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his exiled half-brother in Malaysia last month. But the young tyrant has not

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South Korean warships, infiltrated

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full of commandoes, or blown up

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the way his forebears did, either. With luck, he will just bluster and launch more missiles into the sea. Without luck — well, that’s what we have

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for.

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Jura said:

according to BreakingDefense

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source:

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Jura said:

anyway:

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