South Korea and China move to normalize relations after THAAD conflict
SEOUL — After a year of frosty diplomacy and economic pressure, South Korea and China announced Tuesday that they would put aside their differences out of a joint desire to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the two countries will resume normal relations. ‘‘The two sides attach great importance to the Korea-China relationship,’’ a statement from the ministry said.
In its own coordinated statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said the two nations would work to put their relationship back on a normal track ‘‘as soon as possible.’’
China and South Korea have historically deep ties and over the past few decades had enjoyed a close relationship. However, that relationship was deeply damaged last July when Seoul agreed to install the US-owned Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense platform on its land.
Though both Seoul and Washington argued the THAAD system had only defensive capabilities, Beijing was concerned about US encirclement as well as the sophisticated radar capabilities of the system.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping was also angered that former South Korean president Park Geun-hye had sided with American interests over China, said Yun Sun, a senior associate with the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center.
‘‘Xi had tried to sway South Korea’s alignment choice and when Park rejected China’s demand not to deploy THAAD, it made Xi’s great diplomacy on South Korea a failure and an embarrassment,’’ Sun said in an e-mail this weekend.
When the missile system was deployed earlier this year, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, warned that Beijing would ‘‘resolutely take necessary measures to defend our security interests.’’
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the THAAD dispute had not been fully resolved. ‘‘The two sides agreed to engage in communication on THAAD-related issues about which the Chinese side is concerned through communication between their military authorities,’’ it said in a statement.
For its part, China confirmed Tuesday that its position on THAAD had not changed.
