Delay of THAAD deployment may strain ROK-US ties

By Jun Ji-hye

The Moon Jae-in government’s decision to conduct a full-scale environmental impact study on the placement of a U.S. anti-missile unit here may strain ties between the two countries, experts said Tuesday.

The move could help prevent Seoul-Beijing relations from going from bad to worse, but would not improve them substantially, they said.

President Moon ordered the Ministry of National Defense, Monday, to conduct an extensive environmental survey of the site for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, rather than a smaller environmental assessment that the ministry had originally planned.

This put the brakes on the ministry and the U.S. Forces Korea’s (USFK) plan to fully deploy the missile defense system by the end of the year. A full-scale survey will most likely delay the deployment until next year.

Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, said Moon’s order will probably anger the U.S.

“By ordering the survey, the Moon government is sending the U.S. a message that it thinks negatively about the THAAD deployment and is trying to delay the installation,” Park said. “This could also cause misunderstanding that in the end the Moon government is moving to cancel the deployment.”

The decision to install THAAD was made last July under the former Park Geun-hye administration.

Prof. Park said U.S. President Donald Trump may express his displeasure during a summit with Moon scheduled for later this month in Washington.

“If the two sides fail to resolve the issue, the situation will become much tougher,” he said.

Kim Yeoul-soo, an international politics professor at Sungshin Women’s University, noted that Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin who visited South Korea last week claimed that Washington had transparently proceeded with the deployment. Durbin also implied that the U.S. could use the budget allocated to the THAAD deployment somewhere else if Seoul did not want the missile defense system on its soil.

“The comment might have been a diplomatic way of saying that the U.S. is feeling uncomfortable about the Moon government’s approach to the THAAD issue,” Kim said.

He added that Washington’s displeasure would be obvious even if the Moon government keeps insisting that the U.S. fully understands Seoul’s position.

Mending ties with China?

Experts also pointed out that the government’s move to delay the deployment could have been aimed at improving strained relations between South Korea and China.

China has been strongly opposed to the THAAD installation, claiming it seriously harms the country’s national interests. Beijing has taken various economic and cultural retaliatory actions including cutting off mutual exchanges.

Prof. Park said, however, that China is unlikely to stop its retaliatory measures simply because Seoul is trying to delay the deployment as Beijing’s position has been very clear ― it wants the cancellation of the THAAD deployment.

“What Seoul needs to do now is to ask the U.S. to persuade China,” he said. “Delaying the deployment will not resolve anything.”

Kim said the THAAD deployment here is one of the factors testing the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, noting that China probably wants the deployment put on the backburner until October when the Communist Party Congress is scheduled.

“Moon may know this,” Kim said. “So, he will probably attempt to delay the deployment at least until October even though he is taking a risk on relations with the U.S.”

Kim expressed a cautiously optimistic view, saying if Xi’s term is successfully extended for a further five years at the congress, Beijing would then change its position and accept THAAD to some extent.

Moon’s order for the extensive environmental survey came after Cheong Wa Dae conducted an investigation into the ministry’s failure to include the arrival of four additional THAAD launchers in its reports to the new government. The presidential office suspected that it might have been aimed at evading the full-scale survey.

When announcing the results of the investigation, Monday, Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan said the presidential office found out that ministry attempted to avoid the extensive survey by dividing the 700,000 square meters of land it would provide to the USFK for the deployment.

The law stipulates that installing military facilities in land greater than 330,000 square meters requires a full-scale environmental survey. Yoon said the ministry decided to provide 320,000 square meters of land first, and the rest afterwards.