The New York Times recently published an article on the THAAD protests in Seongju. Despite a long article it shares nothing new and really doesn’t provide deep insight into what is actually happening with this issue:
“Now, if there is war, our village will become the first target because of that machine up there,” she said impatiently.
The “machine” Ms. Do was referring to is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, a powerful radar and missile-interceptor battery also known as Thaad. Five years ago, it was brought to this hamlet about 135 miles southeast of Seoul by the United States, infuriating China and prompting it to unleash economic retaliation.
Washington and Seoul said the weapons system was crucial in their defense against North Korean aggression. China argued that the United States was using North Korea as an excuse to expand its military presence in the region and make implicit threats toward its most formidable competitor. Villagers like Ms. Do and their supporters, including labor activists, have tended to agree.
Now, the Thaad system, located in an area once known for its melon patches, has become a symbol of the broader challenges facing South Korea as it tries to strike a balance between China, the country’s largest trading partner, and the United States, its main security ally.
New York Times
You can read more at the link, but what the article misses is that the THAAD was rapidly deployed into South Korea during the Park Guen-hye administration. The Korean left opposed THAAD simply because it was Park administration initiative. If the THAAD battery was deployed by a President on the Korean left, these protests would not have grown to what they have become. Of course much of the protests were fed by claims the radar would poison crops and give people cancer which all proved untrue. The claims are further ridiculous when one considers that Patriot and Green Pine batteries used for missile defense are deployed all around Korea and there are no protests about them.
Since this was an initiative of President Park the usual suspects in the Korean left came out and protested it. When President Moon took power he took a middle ground of allowing the THAAD to remain where it was because he knew it was providing a needed missile defense capability to the country and did not want to harm the U.S.-ROK alliance by trying to remove it. However, to appease his left wing base he allowed the protesters to continue to block the road forcing the U.S. and ROK military personnel to use helicopters to access the base.
Seeing how THAAD was a wedge issue between the Korean right and left, the Chinese decided to jump in and further inflame this issue by claiming the THAAD was harmful to their national security. They used the false claims the radar was intended to spy on them even though it is pointed towards North Korea, not China. Additionally the U.S. has other radars and assets in the area to monitor China which they say nothing about. The Chinese hoped to pressure Moon to remove THAAD in order to harm the U.S.-ROK alliance. To President Moon’s credit he did not take the bait from the Chinese and allowed the THAAD battery to remain. To appease the Chinese he made the “Three No’s” promise. Despite the promise the Chinese government continued to take economic retaliatory measures against South Korea which continues to this day.
Now with a President from the Korean right in power he has changed policy and has been removing the protesters to allow U.S. and ROK military personnel access to the base by road. This road access will allow much needed facility improvements to enhance the quality of life for U.S. and ROK troops stationed at the base. The few protesters that remain now are simply there for NIMBY reasons and the usual protesters from the Korean left have largely abandoned them as they search for another wedge issue to attack the Korean right with.
