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Risking China’s wrath, South Korean presidential front runner Yoon Suk-yeol says more US Thaad missile deployments are possible
- The conservative opposition People Power Party’s Yoon Suk-yeol says he is also open to deeper military cooperation with America and Japan
- His remarks threaten to upend President Moon Jae-in’s delicately balanced relationship with China, which unleashed a slew of retaliatory measures when the systems were first installed
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The conservative opposition party candidate seeking to replace South Korean President Moon Jae-in at next year’s election has kept open the possibility of further deployments of an American missile system that China sees as a threat.
The People Power Party’s Yoon Suk-yeol, a former top prosecutor, said it would be up to Seoul to decide “how much we bolster missile defence systems including Thaad and how deeply we coordinate with the United States and Japan [for defence]”.
“These issues should be decided upon in accordance with our security situations,” he said.
Yoon was referring to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system that arrived in the country in 2017 to defend the South from an attack by North Korea. China said the system’s radar could be used by the US to spy on it, threatening its security, and unleashed a slew of retaliatory measures that hit South Korea’s trade and tourism sectors.
The dispute went on for a year before Moon and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to “normalise exchanges”.
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