<KANWA news March 11th> The South Korean Defense Ministry officially declared last weekend that South Korea would not join the US-led TMD program. This program received a strong opposition from China. The Chinese official sources have publicly indicated to the foreign news media that China will not hesitate to declare war against Taiwan at all costs if the USA puts Taiwan under its TMD umbrella. As Sung-Han Kim, Associate professor of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security under the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the KWIC reporter, one of the reasons why South Korea holds an attitude of not enthusiastically supporting the TMD program is that South Korea has put into consideration the opposition of China to this program. Now, China holds a strong opposing attitude to this program. However, the resolution to the Korean Peninsular issue requires the full cooperation of China.

South Korea does not join the TMD programs out of the following considerations. Firstly, it does not hope that the TMD program will extend the impact of the US-Japanese alliance to further cover the Korean Peninsular. Secondly, the TMD program requires a large investment, which is more than South Korea can afford considering its current financial capability. Thirdly, the fighting effectiveness of the TMD is limited in dealing with the massive missile attack from North Korea. According to the South Korean scholars, Japan is even less able to say 'No' than South Korea to the US request as far as the security issue is concerned. On the TMD issue, for example, South Korea is able to say 'No'. This is because for South Korea, there are nearly 40000 US troops now stationed in it and the USA will eventually deploy the TMD on the Korean Peninsular to protect the security of the US military base there even if South Korea does not spend a penny.

The intelligence authorities of South Korea believe that North Korea has the annual production capability of no less than 100 ScudB/Cs. North Korea imported the ScudBs from Egypt in 1981 and started to produce them on its own in 1986 after a minor transformation. The products have been exported to Iran. Judged from the export volume, at least eight to twelve missiles of the same type are produced in North Korea each month. At present, North Korea has deployed 300 ground-to-ground missiles along the military demarcation line.

Obviously, the pressure posed by North Korea’s ground-to-ground missiles on South Korea is absolutely no less than the one that Taiwan now bears. In comparison, however, there are no US troops stationed in Taiwan< Kanwa news Andrei Pinkov>.

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