Chinese Ambassador Threatens South Korea Against Pursuing a Second THAAD Battery
Incoming ROK President-Elect Yoon Suk-yeol campaigned on purchasing a second THAAD battery to defend South Korea. The Chinese are making veiled threats if South Korea decides to purchase a missile defense system to defend themselves with in the face of North Korea increasingly testing new missiles. If North Korea wasn’t regularly threatening the ROK with missiles it would not need a THAAD battery in the first place:
South Korea will hazard its improving relationship with China if it deploys a second American-made missile defense battery, China’s ambassador in Seoul implied Thursday.
The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, is a sensitive topic in relations between the two countries, and South Korea “should not be treading in that step again,” Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming said in a speech Thursday at the Millennium Hilton Seoul hotel, according to news reports the next day. (………..)
Xing, speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for Global Strategy and Cooperation, described China-South Korea relations as “really bad” following the THAAD deployment. They had “recovered the right track because the two nations made joint efforts,” he said Thursday.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
So the Peking Mandarins are displeased that the President-elect of South Korea wants another THEATER High Altitude Air Defense system? Well, now isn’t that just too damn bad! Maybe they ought to make some egg fried rice, or something. As one Chinese netizen opined,” That was the best thing to come out of the Korean War.”
”Chinese Ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming said in a speech Thursday (that China-South Korea relations had) “recovered the right track because the two nations made joint efforts,”
All the Lotte Department stores and Lottemarts will get their stores back and no more bi-weekly fire inspections.
Samsung is now outselling Oppo.
Hyundai rivals Honda in Hangzhou.
The 77 year Kim Dynasty ends at midnight.
Bantams can fly.
Maybe … in Xing’s Bizarro World.
Given that THAAD is not an offensive weapon, the only people against the Republic of Korea acquiring another would be people wanting to harm them, people who fear that South Korea would be able to defend themselves…
Why would that bother Beijing unless they planned to attack South Korea?
Me, I don’t make amy money either way; but I wonder if China’s military is as much of a failure as Russia’s has proven to be?
And are they just “making smoke” to intimidate Taiwan?
It’s not the missiles itself the PRC fears but they fear its radar.
The THAAD battery radar aka AN/TPY-2 can in surveillance mode scan for targets up to 2,000km away, which according to the diagram below means that the US and Taiwan can get early warning of PRCs intentions.
If a second THAAD battery is stationed in Korea, then if the US wants to it can use the existing radar to intercept North Korean radars and orient the second radar southwest to keep tabs on China.
Considering the power of those radars you don’t need two to intercept North Korean missiles.
So it’s no surprise that the PRC are going apes about the possibility of Yoon allowing a second THAAD battery.
Tok, radars go down and stay down due to maintenance issues so 2 make a lot of sense for a critical asset. No system has a 100% OR rate.
One of my old commanders had a saying “if you have only one of something God will punish you.”
He said it about 2 days before our PTDS tether snapped and the whole system flew away. We only had one.
Two thoughts on the PRC; If the PRC have no ill plans towards Taiwan then what are they worried about? #sarcasm.
or If the PRC enforced sanctions against the NORKs then they would not likely be having this conversation at all. Most trade transits PRC waters or though it’s land border; only a trickle through Russia but that will likely change with Russia desperate for trade partners. .
@TOK, I discussed this back when THAAD was originally put in, in Korea. The US does not need a Korean THAAD to “spy” on China. Two identical radars are already installed in Japan that are actually surveillance mode radars and not intercept radars like the THAAD battery in Korea. With the Japan based surveillance radars you don’t hear the Chinese complaining about them.
Additionally the U.S. has plenty of other assets to collect on China and the CCP knows this. The THAAD issue is simply being used by the CCP as a wedge issue in South Korea to create tension in the US-ROK Alliance. That is why they don’t complain to Japan because they know they will get no traction on this. However in South Korea they know they can probably get some traction with the loud anti-US element int the ROK. Considering recent polls that show how unpopular China is in the ROK even the typical anti-US groups may become hesitant now to jump on this issue now.
With the Japan based surveillance radars you don’t hear the Chinese complaining about them.
The radars in Japan are located at the north western shore of Japan and are pointed toward in the general direction of North Korea. If you factor in the distance between Japan and North Korea and China and the ranges of the radars in surveillance mode, they aren’t much of any use in keeping tabs on China, which is probably why China isn’t paying much attention to them.
Additionally the U.S. has plenty of other assets to collect on China and the CCP knows this.
Yes, but none of them are persistent surveillance assets in the same league as an extra THAAD radar in Korea.
Besides knowing the Chinese they probably have all sorts of plans up their sleeves and they surely won’t want the US to put assets nearby that can be used to keep constant tabs on them.
@TOK, the radar located at Shariki, Japan is positioned looking west right into North Korea and into China. The attached image shows what its reported 3,000 km range looks like compared to if the THAAD radar was repositioned to look west. Yellow is the Shariki radar and red is THAAD in Korea.
However, the THAAD radar is not looking west and instead north into North Korea and thus extending north into Manchuria. Regardless as I have said before the U.S. has other assets to monitor Chinese missile launches and the Chinese know this. The complaints about the THAAD in Korea is solely a wedge issue. It is even more obvious now that they are complaining about the ROK purchasing their own THAAD battery.