China shows no signs of trade retaliation: trade ministry

Korea has detected no signs of China's retaliatory movement in trade following Seoul's decision to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system, the trade ministry here said Monday.

Seoul and Washington have decided to place the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense on Korean soil by 2017, saying that the deployment is aimed at countering North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threats.

The issue has attracted opposition from China, which argues that the system could target neighboring countries in the end as THAAD is designed to shoot down a ballistic missile at altitudes of 40 to 150 kilometers in its terminal phase of flight using a hit-to-kill method.

Days after Seoul's THAAD announcement, a Chinese carmaker decided to stop producing an electric vehicle equipped with a Korean-made battery, citing that the battery maker, Samsung SDI Co., failed to get the government's approval.

The move raised concerns in Korea that the Chinese government has taken action in retaliation.

"We've not received any reports on China's such retaliatory movements," said Vice Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee said in a regular briefing, refuting the news reports on the electric vehicle battery issue.

"It isn't desirable for both South Korea and China to predict the latter's trade reciprocation."

China is South Korea's largest trade partner as bilateral trade between the two neighboring countries reached $227.4 billion in 2015. (Yonhap)