China Warns of Arms Race After U.S. Deploys Missile Defense in South Korea
By GERRY MULLANY and CHRIS BUCKLEYMARCH 7, 2017
HONG KONG — The United States said on Tuesday that it had begun deploying an advanced
and contentious missile defense system in South Korea, prompting China to warn of a new atomic arms race in a region increasingly on edge over North Korea’s drive to build a nuclear arsenal.
Yang Xiyu, a former senior Chinese official who once oversaw talks with North Korea, said China was worried
that the deployment of the system would open the door to a broader American network of antimissile systems in the region, possibly in places like Japan and the Philippines, to counter China’s growing military as much as North Korea.
The Chinese authorities recently forced the closing of 23 stores owned by Lotte, a South Korean conglomerate
that agreed to turn over land that it owned for use in the Thaad deployment, and hundreds of Chinese protested at Lotte stores over the weekend, some holding banners that read, "Get out of China." Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, warned that Thaad "will bring an arms race in the region," likening the defensive system to a shield that would prompt the development of new spears.
But in another article, the news agency rebuked North Korea, saying it must "face the reality
that it can neither thwart Washington and Seoul nor consolidate its security in a breeze with its immature nuclear technology." The United States’ decision to deploy the missile technology brought new scrutiny to China’s policies toward North and South Korea and suggested that its attempts to please both countries in hopes of averting a crisis had fallen short.
Takashi Kawakami, a professor of international politics
and security at Takushoku University in Tokyo, said the deployment of Thaad could put the United States in a stronger position to consider a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.
