THE Chinese authorities are so angry with South Korea that they have cheered on boycotts of South Korean goods and culture, persecuted South Korean firms operating in China and discouraged Chinese tourists from visiting South Korea. China is South Korea’s biggest market for exports (it spent $137bn on South Korean goods in 2015, nearly twice as much as the next biggest taker, America), so the prospect of a prolonged dispute is alarming. It is also puzzling, given that the source of the row—the deployment of an American anti-missile system called THAAD (pictured)—does not seem nearly as objectionable as China suggests.
Earlier this month America began installing a THAAD system in South Korea. As if to confirm the rationale for deployment, the previous day North Korea had fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan, in what appeared to be a simulated attack on an American base. Last year North Korea conducted more than 20 ballistic-missile tests in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. If anything, the tempo of missile launches has increased this year. This week saw the testing of a powerful new rocket engine and an abortive missile launch. Yet China’s foreign ministry has long fulminated against THAAD. It greeted the deployment by declaring its “firm opposition and strong dissatisfaction”.
In Seoul last week America’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, called on the South Korean government to stand firm in its support for THAAD and described China’s behaviour as “inappropriate and troubling”. Moon Jae-in, the front-runner in South Korea’s presidential election, which will be held on May 9th, has said he will review the deployment, but has been careful not to promise to reverse it.
China has expressed two related criticisms of THAAD, which stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defence. The first is that the powerful radar that THAAD uses to track and hit targets has the capability of “seeing” far into China and thus could be used to undermine the effectiveness of China’s own nuclear arsenal. The second is that the system, which is designed to intercept and destroy short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their descent (terminal) phase, at altitudes of 40-150km, would not be effective because Seoul is so close to North Korean missile launchers. The implication, again, is that China is the real target.
Neither of these arguments is convincing. In the first place, there are already two THAAD radars in Japan, which can see into China, albeit not quite as far as the radar going into South Korea. Michael Elleman, a missile-defence expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says that the THAAD radar in South Korea might pick up Chinese missiles bound for the West Coast of America in their boost phase, but the advantage it would give would be “quite marginal”. THAAD interceptors in South Korea cannot be used to hit Chinese missiles in their launch or boost phase and are in the wrong place to hit missiles attacking America in their terminal phase.
Moreover, the radar in South Korea will be configured in “terminal” rather than “look” mode. It takes a software change and about five hours to switch modes, but doing so would render THAAD useless against North Korean missiles, which pose a grave and immediate threat to the 28,500 American troops in South Korea.
America says it has repeatedly offered Chinese officials technical briefings on the radar’s capabilities and limitations. They have shown little interest, possibly because they do not really disagree about the threat THAAD represents. Chinese military analysts have boasted of China’s ability to “blind” THAAD (meaning to incapacitate it through electronic interference)—a further indication that the outrage is politically motivated.
It is also wrong to suggest that THAAD does nothing to protect South Korea from the North. In a paper for 38 North, a website, Mr Elleman and Michael Zagurek calculate that faced with 50-missile salvoes, a layered defence consisting of South Korea’s Patriot system and two THAAD batteries (another may be deployed when it is available) would probably destroy 90% of incoming land-based missiles. The threat that one of the 10% getting through might be carrying a nuclear warhead would not be eliminated. But South Korea is a lot safer with THAAD than without it.
It is possible that China really does fear that one day its land-based nuclear forces might be hemmed in by an integrated American missile-defence system stretching from Japan to India. That is a remote prospect at both the political and the technical level but, by opposing THAAD’s deployment in South Korea, China may be hoping to nip such a possibility in the bud.
It is more likely, however, that China, always resentful of the presence of American troops so near its borders, sees an opportunity to use THAAD to weaken America’s alliance with South Korea. It may hope that its bullying might yet pressure South Korea’s next president into reversing the deployment. If that is the intention, however, it has probably overplayed its hand, raising Korean hackles with its blatantly coercive methods.
Donald Trump is about to have his first meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping. There will be plenty of thorny issues to discuss. But when it comes to THAAD, the unpredictable Mr Trump can deliver a reasonable message: the problem is not missile defence, but the belligerence of North Korea which makes it necessary, and which Mr Xi has done too little to restrain.