- Main Job for New South Korean Leader Is to Keep Balance

The arms race in Northeast Asia is escalating amid growing tensions over challenging issues such as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system to South Korea and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

The United States began triggering the arms race this year as the Donald Trump administration, which pushes a “peace by strength” policy, appropriated $603 billion on Feb. 27 for defense spending for the 2018 fiscal year.

Announcing the budget increase in its proposal―by about 10 percent year-on-year―the White House said Washington will strengthen its naval forces, apparently wary of disputes with China in the South China Sea.

China has rapidly developed military facilities on many of its man-made islands in the South China Sea to solidify its territorial claims, while the U.S. Navy is increasingly conducting freedom of navigation operations to challenge such claims.

The U.S. began intervening in Northeast Asian affairs after the 1950-53 Korean War, deploying its troops to South Korea and Japan. With China’s drastic growth as an economic power, competition between the G2 nations―the U.S. and China―has been heating up.

The Kim Jong-un regime that has shown no sign of giving up its nuclear arsenal also has given the Trump government ample reason for increasing the defense budget.

In the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election, Trump pledged to increase the number of naval warships to 350 from 272 and modernize the country’s nuclear weapons. All these pledges require huge budgets.

China, which has many important views that differ from the U.S. as well as Japan, said on March 4 that its defense budget for this year increased by about 7 percent. The country did not elaborate on the details, but the budget was estimated to reach about 1.21 trillion yuan ($175 billion), given its budget last year.

It was the first time the budget had exceeded 1 trillion yuan, but the actual figure is presumed to be more, considering there traditionally has been a “hidden budget.”

China has expressed strong opposition to the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea and to the possible deployment in Japan.

South Korea and the United States continue to assure that the missile defense system, to be deployed to the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) this year, is designed only to defend against North Korean missiles. But China claims the battery’s X-band radar could spy on its military capabilities, saying this would severely hurt its security interests and the strategic balance in the Northeast Asian region.
China cited similar reasons for opposing the possible deployment to Japan.
The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, also claimed that Tokyo intends to use the system to beef up the power of its Self-Defense Force, not like Seoul’s case, in which U.S. soldiers will operate the battery. The newspaper added Japan is attempting to strengthen ties with the Trump administration by deploying THAAD.

In a bid to show off its military power, China sent its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, to the western Pacific late last year. It is also striving to develop stealth fighters―J-20s and J-31s.

On March 27, Japan’s House of Councilors passed a budget bill that included 5.1 trillion yen ($46 billion) for the defense spending, which increased by about 71 billion yen. The country said it needed to better deter North Korea’s nuclear and missile program threats.

The country’s territorial disputes with Beijing over the Senkaku Islands, known as Diaoyudao in China, also gave Tokyo some reasons for building up its military.

Tokyo has been spending a large amount of money upgrading its Aegis destroyers and Patriot anti-missile systems. It is also hinting at introducing THAAD on its soil.

Japan decided to buy 42 F-35 stealth fighters in 2011 and delivery is continuing. The F-35 was devised as a little brother to the F-22 to provide overseas customers with a less-costly stealth fighter.

For its part, South Korea has produced its own three-pronged defense system―the Kill Chain preemptive strike system, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan―to respond to North Korean threats.

Kill Chain would see a preemptive strike against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile facilities if Seoul is faced with an imminent threat, while the KAMD would trace and shoot down North Korean ballistic missiles heading for South Korea. The KMPR would be used to punish and retaliate against North Korea if it strikes South Korea. The government said such systems will be deployed in the 2020s.
The South Korean Navy will also have three more Aegis destroyers and nine 3,000-ton submarines.

The cutthroat competition between powerful nations in strengthening their militaries will continue unless North Korea gives up its nuclear ambition or a major breakthrough is made in countries’ territorial disputes. This means Seoul could be swept away by the rapidly changing situations in the region.

Corey Wallace, a security analyst at Berlin’s Freie University, told CNN that South Korea would expose its weakness if there was a war in the region as Seoul has appeared to fail to cooperate well with Tokyo in defense and intelligence areas.

Seoul has also suffered a leadership vacuum since December―despite mounting military tension on the Korean Peninsula―when former President Park Geun-hye was impeached over a high-profile corruption scandal.
The arms race will continue for now.

But whoever is elected president in the May 9 election needs to maintain balance and build trust with neighboring countries as a priority.

By Jun Ji-hye
Staff Reporter
Politics Desk of The Korea Times