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Chinese ambassador to South Korea Xing Haiming criticized former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl for his stance on the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in an opinion piece for the Friday edition of the Joongang Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper.

The South Korean government has asked the Chinese ambassador to South Korea to exercise discretion one day after he rebutted a presidential candidate’s position on an issue connected with the South Korea-US alliance.

Chinese ambassador Xing Haiming criticized former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl, a leading presidential candidate with the political opposition, for his stance on the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system in US military bases in South Korea.

“Prudence is needed to ensure that foreign diplomats’ official position statements about the remarks of politicians in their host country do not have a negative impact on developing relations between the two countries,” an official from South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Sunday.

Yoon had said during a Thursday interview with the Joongang Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, that “if China wants to call for the removal of THAAD, it ought to remove long-range radars located close to our national border.” That prompted Xing to rebut Yoon’s interview in an opinion piece that ran in the same newspaper on Friday titled “South Korea-China relations are not an accessory to South Korea-US relations.”

MOFA’s comments came in response to Xing’s opinion piece in the Joongang Ilbo.

“I’m baffled by [Yoon’s] mention of the Chinese radar in the interview. I’ve never heard from my Korean friends that the Chinese radar is a threat to South Korea,” Xing wrote in the opinion piece.

“[THAAD] damaged China’s national security interests, and the contradictory words and actions of the South Korean government at the time damaged strategic trust between our two countries.”

Initially, the administration of Park Geun-hye insisted that there had been no “request, discussion, or decision” about deploying THAAD in South Korea. But after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6, 2016, Seoul announced it was reviewing the THAAD deployment without prior communication with China. Enraged, Beijing took a number of retaliatory measures against South Korea.

China’s embassy to South Korea posted Xing’s article to its website with the following explanation: “This expresses China’s stern position on the inappropriate remarks made by Yoon Seok-youl, a candidate for South Korea’s next president, in an interview a few days ago with the Joongang Ilbo about South Korea-China relations, South Korea-US relations, THAAD and ‘decoupling’ with China in the areas of semiconductors.”

Some South Korean politicians say that the Chinese ambassador’s rebuttal of a leading presidential candidate with the opposition represents “meddling in the presidential election” and a “breach of diplomatic etiquette.”

MOFA reportedly also conveyed its position about the inappropriate nature of Xing’s remarks to the Chinese embassy.

On a related topic, a MOFA official reconfirmed that “the government’s position on the THAAD deployment is unchanged.”

Seoul has consistently held that the THAAD batteries in Korea were deployed in response to the North Korean nuclear and missile threat and that those batteries do not harm China’s strategic national security interests because they aren’t aimed at other countries, in line with the purpose of their deployment.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]