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China on Wednesday demanded an immediate stop to deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in the Republic of Korea (ROK).

"China is seriously concerned," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing, reiterating China's opposition to the deployment of THAAD by the U.S. and the ROK.

ROK has announced its intention to deploy four more THAAD on Thursday.

THAAD will not help resolve security concerns. Rather, it will undermine the regional strategic balance, harm regional security interests, including China's, and increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Geng said.

"China demands that the U.S. and the ROK respect the security interests and concerns of China and other regional countries, with an immediate stop to the deployment process and removal of the equipment," the spokesperson said.

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As worrying as North Korea’s nuclear advance is for America, the increasingly realistic threat of an atomic warhead striking a U.S. city might be even more unnerving for South Korea and Japan. So much so that the United States is considering new ways to flex its nuclear muscle to defend its vulnerable allies as they ponder if they’ll one day need atomic arsenals of their own.


For decades, the United States has defended South Korea and Japan, the nations most directly threatened by the North’s missiles and massive conventional forces, through an extended “nuclear umbrella.” The basic premise is that an attack on either ally risked a devastating American response. It’s a U.S. commitment that has guided the actions of American friends and foes alike.

Pyongyang’s emerging capabilities are upsetting all calculations. The North this weekend exploded its strongest-ever nuclear weapon and in July tested a pair of intercontinental ballistic missiles that might soon be able to threaten the entire American mainland.

Now that the United States faces its own threat of North Korean retaliation, the most pressing security question of the next years could be: Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul?

“It’s the core dilemma of extended deterrence for allies in the nuclear era: Will the U.S. actually risk one of their population centers for our defense?” Sheila Smith at the Council on Foreign Relations said. “It’s hard to believe the answer is ‘yes.‘”

Speaking to The Associated Press on Tuesday, former South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan acknowledged that North Korea’s more powerful bombs and further-reaching missiles are sparking debate about his country’s long-term security strategy.

“Worries have begun to appear,” he declared of the U.S. commitments, and said a growing minority of South Koreans want Washington to redeploy short-range nuclear weapons that were withdrawn from the country in the early 1990s. Others question if South Korea should have nukes of its own.

Song Young-moo, defense minister of Seoul’s currently dovish government, on Monday suggested bringing back the U.S. nuclear weapons was worth consideration. He reportedly discussed the matter with Defense Minister Jim Mattis last week.

The Pentagon declined to outline its position.

“We work closely with our allies but it is always inappropriate to discuss the locations of our nuclear arsenal, or the topics of closed-door discussions,” Col. Rob Manning, a spokesman, said.

Japan, the only country to have suffered nuclear attacks, is more strongly opposed to having atomic weapons. Its defense planners are weighing if they need an offensive, conventional missile strike capability to respond to a North Korean attack. A nuclear leap isn’t unimaginable. From its nuclear energy program, Japan sits on a stockpile of reprocessed plutonium that could be turned into the material for thousands of bombs.

For as long as North Korea couldn’t strike the U.S. with nuclear weapons, both allies felt assured that the promise of an overwhelming American military response would deter the communist country. Now, the North’s technological progress is adding to insecurities compounded by President Donald Trump’s sometimes lukewarm support for defending U.S. allies under his “America First” agenda.

No one knows how North Korea will use its newfound nuclear capabilities.

It could adopt a policy of deterrence, similar to that of the world’s established nuclear powers, keeping its arsenal as a defense against what it believes are American designs to overthrow leader Kim Jong Un. It could use the weapons offensively, although that would risk devastating nuclear retaliation.

More likely is a policy somewhere in between.

As it assesses the rest of the world’s reluctance to engage in nuclear crossfire, the North could act more aggressively with its conventional forces against South Korea. Or it could simply leverage its atomic arsenal to win international concessions in negotiations.

Under any approach, Trump and future U.S. commanders in chief will have a very persuasive argument for why the North shouldn’t directly attack the United States: American military superiority. Trump last month warned of “fire and fury” if the North threatened the U.S.; Mattis this weekend raised the specter of the “total annihilation of a country.”

South Korea and Japan can present no picture of apocalyptic retaliation by themselves — which adds to their current vulnerability. Despite Mattis’ declaration that such American promises are “ironclad,” Pyongyang’s potential ability to strike an American city with nuclear weapons will naturally affect U.S. strategic thinking.

Would Washington come to South Korea’s aid and take on such a risk if the North shells a southern island with artillery as it did in 2010? What if North Korea, with the world’s largest standing army, crosses into the South?

“South Korea may face the most complex strategic environment in Asia,” write Sung Chull Kim and Michael D. Cohen, editors of a new collection of scholarly essays titled “North Korea and Nuclear Weapons: Entering the New Era of Deterrence.” ″A very weak but heavily armed North Korea, despite being no match for the South Korean military, threatens Seoul with imminent destruction.”

Kim and Cohen write of the North’s enhanced threat creating a “perceived commitment deficit from Washington.”

Such assessments are driving the Trump administration to reassure its allies.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would allow Japan and South Korea to “buy a substantially increased amount of highly sophisticated military equipment from the United States.” The tweet followed Trump giving South Korean President Moon Jae-in an “in-principle approval” for weapons with less restrictions and more powerful warheads.

But sending U.S. nuclear weapons back to South Korea would be a more drastic step, contradicting the efforts of multiple administrations to “denuclearize” the Korean Peninsula.

Twenty-six years ago this month, in the hopeful aftermath of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush announced the unilateral withdrawal of all land-based and sea-based tactical nuclear weapons, including from South Korea. He then pulled all air-delivered nuclear bombs from the South in part because officials believed they were no longer needed for an effective defense. That was years before the North demonstrated its nuclear prowess with a first explosion in 2006.

Redeploying the weapons to South Korea wouldn’t dramatically change the strategic balance, as the U.S. has nuclear assets on submarines that can operate off North Korea’s coast. However, doing so could provide the South with a renewed sense that the U.S. would use its nukes in a crisis.

Such action would provoke extreme objections from key regional powers, China and Russia, who would likely accuse the U.S. of fueling an arms race. And it’s hardly universally supported among U.S. policy makers or South Koreans.

“It is a bad idea,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He said it wouldn’t significantly strengthen nuclear deterrence and might spark protests in South Korea that weaken its U.S. alliance.

If the Trump administration were to return U.S. nuclear weapons to the peninsula, they probably would be bombs for delivery by what the Pentagon calls “dual capable” aircraft. These include F-16 and F-15 fighter jets configured to perform either nuclear or conventional attack missions. Security requirements to safely store and maintain the weapons also would require upgrades or additions to U.S. military facilities in South Korea.

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U.S.

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trucks brought four more THAAD anti-missile launchers onto a former golf course in South Korea on Thursday, following clashes between police and protesters trying to block the road.

Two of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system launchers were already in place, but the remaining four in the battery had been put on hold pending an environmental study.

On Wednesday, the South Korean Defense Ministry

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of six launchers in response to North Korea’s underground detonation last week of a nuclear weapon that

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.

“After consultations with Washington, the additional THAAD launchers will be installed on a temporary basis together with other construction equipment and materials,” the Defense Ministry said.

For months, the placement of the THAAD system in Seongju, about 186 miles south of Seoul, has been the target of protests by local residents who fear that the presence of the launchers will make the area a prime target in the event of war.

South Korean news outlets reported that several dozen protesters suffered minor injuries in clashes with police trying to clear an access road.

The installation of the full THAAD battery is part of a regional military buildup authorized by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and approved by President Donald Trump in response to North Korea’s nuclear tests and development of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he would allow South Korea and Japan to

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of highly sophisticated military equipment.” He did not specify the types of systems under consideration.

Both South Korea and Japan have

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air defense systems, and Japan reportedly has expressed interest in installing a THAAD system.

In its 2018 defense budget proposals, Japan also seeks funding for missile defense upgrades, to include Standard Missile-3 Block 2A and

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MSE hit-to-kill interceptors as well as improvements to air and missile defense radars.

In addition, Japan also wants the Aegis Ashore air defense system — the land-based version of the system already in use on U.S., Japanese and South Korean warships.

Trump has given initial approval to South Korea’s request to lift the limits on the size of its missile warheads to double their explosive force.

Under a 2012 agreement, South Korea’s missiles were restricted to a range of about 500 miles and warheads of about 1,000 pounds. The new arrangement would allow warheads of about 2,000 pounds.

On Wednesday, Mattis phoned his South Korean and Japanese counterparts to assure them of the U.S.’s continuing “ironclad” commitment to their defense.

Also on Wednesday, Mattis — joined by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats — put forward the administration’s strategy for dealing with North Korea in closed briefings for House and Senate members.

The two-part strategy looks to building missile defenses in the U.S. and the region while eventually pursuing a negotiated settlement to denuclearize the peninsula, according to members of Congress who attended the briefings.

“There was really no bluster whatsoever” in the briefings. “It’s clear the administration would like some kind of negotiating deal,” Rep. Eliot Engel, D-New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Politico.

Since he came to office in January, Trump has been calling on China to pressure North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un to cease his provocations and come to the bargaining table.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi suggested Thursday that Beijing is willing to go along with additional United Nations sanctions against North Korea — which Russia opposes — in combination with efforts to open a dialogue with the North.

“Given the new developments on the Korean peninsula, China agrees that the U.N. Security Council should make a further response and take necessary measures,” Wang told reporters at an economic forum in Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast.

“Any new actions taken by the international community against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] should serve the purpose of curbing the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs, while at the same time be conducive to restarting dialogue and consultation,” Wang said.

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The remaining elements of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system were transported to the deployment site in South Korea on Thursday morning.

Neighboring countries, including China and Russia, have strongly opposed the system's deployment, seeing it as threat to the regional strategic balance and damaging to the security interests of other countries.

So faced with provocation from the US and South Korea, what countermeasures can China take in response?

First of all, China could speed up building up its nuclear deterrence, said an editorial published in the newspaper Global Times.

China has maintained a low profile over its nuclear armaments for decades and has pledged not to use them as a threat to non-nuclear states.

But now that the THAAD system has been placed on China’s doorstep, Beijing should become more powerful in its nuclear deterrence to safeguard its own interests.

China also needs to develop a radar jamming facility, said Shi Jiangyue, a senior military commentator.

The THAAD system’s radar can probe deep into Chinese territory and were China to fire a missile, the system’s radar could detect the signal and give the US warning, said Shi.

Guo Songmin, a former air force pilot and now a military commentator, suggested imposing economic sanctions on South Korea, just as China has done against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

South Korea has ignored Beijing’s repeated warnings and insisting on installing THAAD, something which is an open challenge to China, said Guo, adding that China’s economic sanctions will be a hard punch to South Korea.

Seoul has been highly dependent on the Chinese market ever since the two countries established diplomatic ties. As the biggest beneficiary of the Chinese economy, South Korea would not have recovered quickly from the economic crisis in 1990s but for the pull of the Chinese market.

“The US has set plenty of examples on this regard, and we need to show the world that whoever angers China shall bear the consequences,” Guo underscored.

How does THAAD work?

The ground-based missile defense system is designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the terminal phase, as they descend.

It’s different from conventional defense missiles, which are designed to get close to a target and self-detonate to damage or deflect the threat.

According to THAAD’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, THAAD is more like hitting a bullet with a bullet: the missiles rely on infra-red seeker technology to locate and hit the target head on, completely destroying it.

How does THAAD threaten China？

The US claims that the installation of THAAD will be able to better defend South Korea against growing threats from the DPRK.

But analysts argue that THAAD has only limited use against the DPRK, as it would not be able to hit short-range missiles that do not reach high altitudes, hinting the radar may be the real intention for the deployment.

The sophisticated radar capabilities included in THAAD can help improve the effectiveness of the US ballistic missile defense system. It can detect most of China's strategic missiles, which could give the US a major advantage in the event of war.

China opposes the THAAD system’s installation, saying it undermines China's strategic security interests. Beijing is concerned that the US is using South Korea to contain China in the future. The Global Times accused Seoul of “tying itself to the US chariot and turning into an arrogant pawn of Washington in the latter’s military containment against China.”

“If South Korea insists on becoming a US puppet, China will have to act against it,” the paper said.

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So faced with provocation from the US and South Korea

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Jeff Head said:

Seriously? I mean...seriously?

You have the little tyrant in North Korea firing ballistic missiles across other nation's territories and threatening them...and so SKOR and the US set up a defensive system to defend themselves and THEY are the ones screwing up the "balance of power"?

Amazing how the spin and the propaganda works.

It is a defensive system and it certainly is not capable of threatening the strategic balance in any way.

But it can shoot down shorter range and slower ballistic missile like the North is showing off so far.

I cannot blame SKOR or the Japanese from responding to such threats. It is clear who is throwing things ut of balance and I just hope that China put some kind of muzzle or brakes on the little tyrant from North Korea if they can.

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