SOUTH KOREA said yesterday that new key elements of a US anti-missile system have been set up on its territory.

In a step likely to alarm China and Russia as well as North Korea, Seoul announced that two or three launchers, intercept missiles and a radar had been installed at a site on a golf course in the country’s south.

The government said the US was working with it to activate the system as quickly as possible to counter the nuclear and ballistic missile threat from the North.

Meanwhile, cruise missile submarine the USS Michigan arrived in the southern port of Busan, with aircraft carrier the USS Carl Vinson close behind.

US President Donald Trump dispatched the carrier two weeks ago to warn Pyongyang against carrying out a sixth nuclear weapon test or trial firing an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

China and Russia both object to the deployment of the THAAD system a few hundred miles from their borders.

They argue that its minimum intercept altitude is two high to counter ballistic missiles aimed at Seoul, which lies just 35 miles from the Demilitarised Zone separating the North and South.

Instead, Moscow and Beijing say, the system is intended to neutralise their own nuclear deterrents.

Hyundai reported a 21 per cent drop in its first-quarter profits yesterday as angry Chinese motorists boycotted the South Korean car giant.

China’s Global Times newspaper argued in its editorial yesterday that Washington must produce a carrot as well as stick if it wants Pyongyang to abandon its atomic weapons programme.

“Both sanctions and North Korea’s nuclear activities should be temporarily frozen,” it said.

“In the eyes of the Pyongyang regime, the US aim is to topple it.

“Pyongyang worries that once it gives up its nuclear deterrence, Washington will overthrow its regime. The Trump administration needs to prove that the US has no intention of doing so.”

“Washington had at least broken its promises twice in handling the North Korean nuclear issue, which undermines Pyongyang’s trust toward Washington,” the newspaper pointed out.

Former US president Bill Clinton promised North Korea a light water nuclear reactor if it ended nuclear weapons research, but George W Bush cancelled the deal.