By Jun Ji-hye
China has ignored an invitation by South Korea to a global security forum in an apparent protest against the planned deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system here.
The Ministry of National Defense said it sent invitations, May 4, to countries and international organizations to attend the Seoul Defense Dialogue (SDD), scheduled to kick off Wednesday for a three-day run.
However, the Chinese government never replied, according to ministry officials. Thirty-three nations, including the United States, Japan and Russia, and five international bodies, including the United Nations and the European Union, have sent representatives.
“We received no reply from China as of Tuesday,” a ministry official said on condition of anonymity. “So, we think nobody from the Chinese government will attend this year’s forum.”
The SDD is an annual security forum of vice-minister level defense officials and security experts from countries and global bodies, aimed at examining ways of better coping with growing threats from North Korea.
Beijing has dispatched delegates for four straight years since the inaugural event in 2012 ― the country sent a military officer serving in South Korea in 2012 and 2013, and a director-level defense official in 2014 and 2015.
The ministry said though nobody from the Chinese government would attend this year’s forum, civilian experts from the country, including Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, will participate.
Observers say that China’s apparent refusal to dispatch its defense official to this year’s event is seen as a protest against Seoul and Washington’s announcement last month on the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here by the end of next year.
The two allies say that THAAD is designed to deter evolving nuclear and missile threats from the North, but China has repeatedly claimed that the system’s radar can be used to spy on its military activities.
Meanwhile, the ministry said the forum, the fifth of its kind, will proceed with the main theme “Complex Security Crises: Challenges and Solutions” at the Westin Chosun Hotel in central Seoul.
Four central European countries ― the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia ― and two African countries ― Uganda and Ethiopia ― have sent representatives to the forum for the first time, reflecting Seoul’s growing diplomatic ties with those countries, the ministry noted.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will also participate for the first time since the establishment of the SDD.
Ahmet Uzumcu, the director-general of the OPCW, will deliver a keynote speech on peace and stability on the peninsula divided since the three-year Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Other participants include U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Defense Policy David Shear; Douglas Paal, vice president of International Peace Studies at the Carnegie Endowment; and Kim Hong-kyun, special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.