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President Moon Jae-in is brief on his special envoys’ visits to the US

The Chinese government reportedly asked the special envoys sent by President Moon Jae-in to halt the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system and to completely remove THAAD, insisting that South Korea should fix its own mistakes.

This was part of the briefing Moon received from his delegation to China, composed of Minjoo Party lawmakers Lee Hae-chan, Kim Tae-nyeon and Shim Jae-kwon, during a meeting with the envoys to the US, China and Japan that was held at the Blue House on the afternoon of May 24. The envoys reported that during their meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xi had indicated that he trusts President Moon and expects a lot from him and had expressed his opposition to the THAAD deployment in a relatively moderate tone of voice.

But Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi pressured the envoys repeatedly to immediately halt the THAAD deployment and to completely remove THAAD from South Korea, the envoys said. Yang had apparently been especially forceful in demanding the removal of THAAD, stating that “the South Korean government must deal with the problem it has created.” In response, the envoys said that the deployment of additional THAAD equipment has been halted for now. As for removing THAAD, they reportedly explained that the new government had had not been in power for long and that it needed time to review the topic. Moon reportedly did not make any particular remarks about the envoys’ briefing. Lee Hae-chan conveyed the message that China wants to promptly organize a summit with Moon.

“I confirmed the possibility of getting good results if South Korea and the US play their separate parts in tackling current issues. The US regards the North Korean nuclear issue as a top priority and even believes that this could be a golden opportunity to find a solution to that issue. My discussion with President Trump was serious throughout,” said Hong Seok-hyun, the special envoy to the US.

Moon Hee-sang, special envoy to Japan, said that his most major achievement was reaching an agreement to restore “shuttle diplomacy” between South Korea and Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also expressed to Moon his hope that a summit could be held as soon as possible to restore bilateral trust. But Moon also said his visit had reconfirmed the divide between the two countries on the Dec. 2015 comfort women agreement.

“I get the impression that we said what we needed to say both about the THAAD issue and about the comfort women issue,” Moon said in regard to the envoys‘ activities. “Because the government was in a chaotic state for so long, there was a gap in our diplomacy, but I think [the envoys] have served to fill and to heal that gap at a single stroke.”

By Choi Hye-jung, staff reporter

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