AUS-made missile defence system in South Korea moved one step closer to completion this week, in a controversial move that signals the Westward shift of the country’s new president and may lead to tensions with China.

Seoul this week said it had granted additional land to Washington for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system, despite clear warnings from China that fully deploying the equipment would be seen as a security threat to Beijing. 

A report in China’s Global Times this week said the issue once again risked “dragging China-South Korea relations into the abyss.”

When the system was first installed in 2017, Beijing imposed punishing economic sanctions that left Korean businesses reeling, arguing that THAAD could be used to spy on its military facilities, something it has continued to maintain. 

The United States and South Korea have denied China’s charges, insisting THAAD, which intercepts incoming ballistic missiles, is solely a defensive measure against an increasingly hostile North.

Park Jin, South Korean foreign minister, has stressed it is a matter of South Korea’s security-related sovereignty, and President Yoon Suk Yeol has insisted to Beijing that it should not become a “hurdle” to bilateral relations.

But it has been interpreted as a clear sign that he is shifting towards Washington and for President Yoon, a newcomer on the global stage, straddling the interests of the US and China - South Korea’s largest trading partner - could prove a political minefield.