begin quote from:
A Missile-Defense Message for China
| Wall Street Journal | - |
The
free world got a boost Tuesday as American, Japanese and South Korean
forces completed their first trilateral missile-defense drill in waters
off Hawaii.
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A Missile-Defense Message for China
A strong show of unity by the U.S., Japan and South Korea.
ENLARGE
The U.S.
nuclear-propelled Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier (L) and the South
Korean Aegis-equipped Sejong destroyer sailing in waters off the east
coast of South Korea in October 2015.
Photo:
European Pressphoto Agency
A trilateral exercise would have been hard to imagine a few years ago, when relations between Tokyo and Seoul were strained by territorial and historical disputes. But an intensifying threat from Pyongyang, Beijing’s aggressiveness in the East and South China Seas, and some statesmanship from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye have transformed the relationship.
In 2014 the two sides agreed, after years of wrangling, to begin exchanging information about North Korea through their U.S. friends. Last year they settled years of disagreement over so-called comfort women, the Koreans taken as sex slaves by Japan’s imperial army in World War II. Tokyo reiterated apologies and arranged payments for victims, while Seoul deemed the resolution “final and irreversible.”
The Obama Administration insists Chinese participation in Rimpac can help make China’s navy more professional while soothing China’s fears that the U.S. wants to keep it isolated and weak. Maybe. But at least Beijing, which has berated Seoul for talking about deploying the U.S.-made Thaad missile defense system, will notice this week’s drill. China staged its own joint missile-defense drill with Russia last month.
China knows that its North Korean client is the reason U.S. allies in Northeast Asia are investing in better defenses, but Beijing remains unwilling to pressure Kim Jong Un. Last week the North Korean dictator fired another midrange ballistic missile capable of flying 2,000 miles and hitting targets as far as the U.S. territory of Guam. That’s the fifth midrange missile test since April, following January’s nuclear test and February’s launch of an intercontinental missile that could threaten the mainland U.S.
South Korea’s security depends on an early decision to deploy Thaad. Japan needs to do the same, augmenting its U.S.-made X-band radar, deployed in 2014, with Thaad’s powerful interceptors. As a South Korean official said recently, upgrading missile defenses in Northeast Asia is a “live-or-die” matter. All the more reason to cheer this week’s drills.
