US & China Play Potentially Volatile Game Of Chicken In South Korea With THAAD Anti-Missile System

As North Korea steps up the frequency of its missile tests and prepares for a sixth nuclear test,

it has become more important for China to make common cause with South Korea

if it wants to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the North, as Beijing insists that it does.

China’s relationship with North Korea, its ostensible ally, is at a ragged low — and its ties with the South are in poor shape.

All at once, Beijing is at odds with both Koreas.

But while Xi welcomes Moon as a preferable alternative to Ms. Park, he is concerned about one point of contention:

Xi has made it clear that an American missile defense system authorized by Ms. Park —

and quickly set up by the United States in South Korea just before Moon took office —

is a major obstacle to good relations.

Beijing complains that the system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery, known as THAAD,

which the Americans designed to protect South Korea against the North,

undermines China’s missile force and its ability to deter a nuclear attack.

China views THAAD as just one element in an effort to contain its military

by building a strategic architecture that would eventually connect South Korea, Japan and the United States.

“Stopping the deployment of THAAD is the bottom line of China,”

Global Times, a state-run newspaper that often reflects the thinking of the Communist Party leadership, said soon after Moon’s election.

“Seoul needs to make a choice between deploying THAAD and resuming Sino-South Korean relations.

It should not hope to have it both ways.”

How is Moon, a lawyer, going to finesse the demands of China that THAAD disappear — and the insistence of the United States it remain?

It will be difficult, Chinese experts say.

Xi will try to persuade Moon to make some unpalatable compromises, they say,

ones that would not sit well with the American military.

Already, Moon appears to be at loggerheads with the Pentagon.

On Tuesday, he ordered a wide-ranging investigation into how four new THAAD launchers had arrived in South Korea without his knowledge.

The launchers are intended to supplement the two Thaad installations already in place.

But even rejecting the new equipment may not satisfy China.

“South Korea could make a promise to only allow one set of THAAD on its territory,”

said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Cheng was referring to assessments that South Korea does not have sufficient THAAD batteries yet to protect the entire country, and will need more.

“But that’s not enough,” Cheng added.

“China could ask South Korea not to join a trilateral alliance with Japan and the United States.”

Since the 1990s, China has been concerned that the US wants to form a NATO-like alliance on its doorstep.

But given that Trump is rapidly dismantling the original NATO, I don’t think the Chinese should be all that worried.

China could also demand that Moon’s government allow China to verify that

THAAD’s radar system can detect incoming missiles

only within 800 kilometers (about 500 miles) and not 2,000 kilometers (about 1,200 miles), Cheng said.

But China’s intrusive inspection of THAAD in South Korean territory for verification purposes would be rejected by the Pentagon, he acknowledged.

A Chinese rocket scientist, Wu Riqiang, said in an interview that

the THAAD system allowed the US to monitor Chinese intercontinental ballistic missiles from the moment they were fired from bases in central China.

The American military would then have the ability to differentiate between real warheads and decoys carried on the missiles, thus weakening China’s deterrent.