After South Korea\u2019s largest arms purchase in history – $7 billion for forty U.S. fighter jets – Seoul is being pressured to deploy more U.S. arms. THAAD \u2013 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense is the billion-dollar anti-missile defense system U.S. officials target for deployment on the Korean Peninsula. Experts have reservations.<\/p>\n
South Korean and American officials flip-flopped on the nature of negotiations, seeking to keep the sensitive issue out of the spotlight. Seoul\u2019s challenge lies in its position as the so-called shrimp between two whales.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s military alliance with America marks a steady source of friction with the South Korean public. One such flashpoint is Jeju Island, where a growing new navy base represents a likely anti-missile installation. In both the diplomatic and domestic spheres, Seoul confronts opposition.<\/p>\n
China recently became South Korea\u2019s largest trading partner with the two states set to sign a Free Trade Agreement this week. Yet the United States remains Seoul\u2019s main ally and linchpin of its national security, with 28,000 U.S. troops in the country.<\/p>\n
As the U.S. pivots to Asia amid China\u2019s rise, South Korea continues to face a delicate balancing act.<\/p>\n
Frank Smith\u00a0–\u00a0Press TV, Seoul<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After South Korea\u2019s largest arms purchase in history – $7 billion for forty U.S. fighter jets – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[124,1],"tags":[45,6,5,95,7,63],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-news","tag-china","tag-defense","tag-military","tag-south-korea","tag-u-s","tag-weapons"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/SK-US-Weapons.jpg?fit=620%2C328&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-jj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}