The United States' plan to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea reveals its true intentions, as tactically, the THAAD plays a much larger role in protecting the United States from North Korea's missile threats rather than protecting South Korea. The real reason Washington wants to deploy the THAAD on the Korean Peninsula is to use the remote probing function of the THAAD's radar system to strategically contain China. Such deployment actually encourages a kind of military cold war, ultimately creating a negative atmosphere that may hinder the settlement of the peninsula issue.

The China factor

Solving the Korean Peninsula issue requires establishing a strategic cooperation pattern in Northeast Asia. The China-South Korea strategic partnership has illustrated the kind of positive example that the region needs.

Stubborn adherence to a Cold War mentality has been the major obstacle to reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula for decades. In a continuation of its containment strategy of the Cold War era, the United States has used the rivalry between North and South Koreas as well as that between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan as excuses to maintain its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, the reconciliation process on the peninsula is made much more complicated. The peninsula issue was also dealt a blow by the retreat from the signing of the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in December 1991 to the current deadlock status.

The Cold War mentality has also become a bottleneck for regional stability as well as for the cooperation and development in Northeast Asia. Under this mentality, the United States' attempt to forge a military bloc based on ideological grounds to settle the "security threat" has backfired.

Against this backdrop, China and South Korea have spearheaded an international security mode that conforms to the trend of the times. In the new century, the international community has evolved into a coherent whole alongside the continuously deepening economic globalization. At the same time, security has also become a much more comprehensive concept. The security of an individual country is highly connected with the stability of the global economic and political system. One country can only maintain its own security through enhancing the stability of the international system via deepening cooperation. The current China-South Korea cooperation is based on such awareness and has overcome the limitations of the traditional balance-of-power theory. By promoting systematic regional stability and prosperity through comprehensive cooperation, they have worked to settle mutual security concerns under the environment of a stable regional system.

The China-South Korea cooperation embodies their pursuit of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security--a model proposed and strongly advocated by China in recent years. The new security concept promotes not to seek one country's security at the cost of others, but rather to cooperate to resolve security issues. The cooperation between China and South Korea serves as a model for the settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue, pointing to a way out of the current stalemate by establishing a common and comprehensive regional security mechanism.

South-North interaction

While U.S. involvement has complicated the peninsula issue, relations between North and South Koreas have still played a crucial role. Political reconciliation of the two sides could greatly facilitate the settlement of the nuclear issue. The current situation on the Korean Peninsula is worrying. On one hand, the increasing confrontations are eroding prospects for reconciliation; on the other, economic sanctions on North Korea imposed by the United States and its allies have had limited effects, and the economic improvement of North Korea could mean a more stable regime with an enhanced ability to fight back. This situation presents a classic "lose-lose" pattern. Therefore, instead of looking to the great powers for a way out, the two Koreas can start by simply improving bilateral ties to break the current deadlock.

On December 29, 2014, South Korea's Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl Jae said at a news briefing that Seoul has sent a letter to Pyongyang seeking to resume stalled talks on issues of common concern in January 2015. If North Korea responded to the proposal positively, Ryoo told reporters that he would lead a delegation to attend the ensuing meeting. Hopefully, the two sides get off to a good start in 2015 and add more momentum to the settlement of the peninsula issue.

The author is an associate research fellow with the China Institute of International Studies

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