Terminal High Altitude Area Defense

The Japanese defense ministry has asked for a record high budget for 2018 to improve Japan's defense against the growing threat from North Korea, the Associated Press and the France press reported.

The request is for 5,255 billion yen (about USD 48 billion or EUR 40 billion), which means an increase of 2.54 percent. The budget for the past year was 5,125 billion yen.

Beijing has made no secret of its displeasure with South Korea's deployment of the American-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system - and now that the deployment has resumed, China may seek to retaliate against Seoul.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and American President Donald Trump vowed to take “concrete actions” to discourage further North Korean belligerence following yet another missile launch last week in an extended phone conversation Monday.

China reaffirms its strong objections to US plans on deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea, as it may threaten China's national security, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang said Friday.

The United States toughened its military pressure and invective against nuclear-armed North Korea on Wednesday, conducting a missile maneuver with South Korea, hinting of a possible return to war with the North and proposing wider United Nations sanctions against “any country that does business with this outlaw regime.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has urged Chinese officials to apply greater diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to force Pyongyang to rein in its nuclear weapons program.

Preparing for North Korea’s growing threat, the Pentagon will try to shoot down an intercontinental-range missile for the first time in a test next week. The goal is to more closely simulate a North Korean ICBM aimed at the U.S. homeland, officials said Friday

North Korea said yesterday that it had successfully tested an intermediate-range ballistic missile which met all technical requirements and could now be mass-produced, indicating advances in its ambitions to be able to hit the United States.

Slapping import bans on products like mangoes, coal and salmon has long been China's way of punishing countries that refuse to toe its political line.

But Beijing has shown that it can also hurt others by cutting a lucrative Chinese export: Tourists who normally flock to South Korea or Taiwan.

Gunner's mates inspect linked belts of Mark 149 Mod 2 20mm ammunition before loading it into the magazine of a Mark 16 Phalanx close-in weapons system aboard the battleship USS MISSOURI - Photo: Wikipedia