BEIJING – China said Tuesday it would “resolutely” defend its security interests as the US began deploying the THAAD missile-defence system in South Korea that Beijing fears will undermine its own military capabilities.

“We are firmly opposed to the deployment of THAAD in the Republic of Korea by the US and the ROK,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

“China will resolutely take necessary measures to defend our own security interests. All consequences entailed from this will be borne by the US and the ROK.”

Read Also: US starts deploying anti-missile system in S.Korea after defiant North’s latest test

The US Pacific Command said Monday its military had begun deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system to South Korea, which is aimed at defending the US ally from a North Korean attack.

The latest tests by nuclear-armed North Korea came Monday when it launched four missiles that it said were part of training for a strike on US bases in Japan.

Three of the missiles came down in waters provocatively close to Japan.

Read Also: North Korea says missiles were drill for strike on US bases

Beijing has railed against the deployment of THAAD, while the South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group has come under pressure in China for providing land to host the system.

Geng, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, did not specify what measures China would take.

“We strongly urge relevant parties to stop the deployment and not to travel down that wrong path,” he said.

Read Also: S Korea acting president calls for swift deployment of US anti-missile system

Chinese protesters have held demonstrations denouncing Lotte, which also faces multiple threats of consumer or business boycotts.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Tuesday that Chinese authorities had shut down 39 of Lotte’s retail outlets in the country, citing fire-safety concerns.

The THAAD system is meant to intercept and destroy short and medium-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight.

Pyongyang’s travel ban on Malaysians leaving North Korea sharply escalated the already-high tensions with Kuala Lumpur – but is only the latest episode of the isolated country’s diplomatic brinkmanship.

The authoritarian, nuclear-armed state has a long history of using foreigners – especially American tourists or missionaries – as bargaining chips in its nuclear and aid negotiations with the US.

The reclusive nation has also occasionally shut its borders in the face of external health threats, or in protest at times of military tension with the South, despite the potential consequences.

Here are some of its most notable measures: .

Read also: Malaysia says North Koreans not allowed to leave: Deputy PM

A number of Americans have been arrested and jailed for crimes including hostile acts and illegal religious activity, sometimes for years.

Many were released after visits by high-profile US figures including ex-presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, but with relations between Pyongyang and Washington in the deep freeze two remain in the North.

Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old college student, was last year sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour for stealing propaganda materials. Kim Dong-Chul, a Korean-American pastor, has been jailed on spying charges.

The North receives a tiny number of overseas visitors, but closed its borders to foreign tourists for more than four months from October 2014 in a bid to keep out the Ebola virus – when no cases had been reported in Asia.

It went so far as to enforce a 21-day quarantine period on anyone entering the country, including foreign diplomats and businessmen.

Read also: Malaysian PM Najib calls on North Korea to release all Malaysians

Tourism is a crucial source of hard currency for the impoverished nation, but the country, notorious for weak medical infrastructure and chronic lack of medicines, appeared willing to take a financial hit.

When South Korea suffered from the world’s largest outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, in summer 2015, the North reportedly prohibited its diplomats and workers overseas from returning to their homeland for months to prevent the spread of the virus.

Pyongyang also suspended foreign tours for three months due to fears over SARS in 2003.

Read also: PM Najib to N. Korea: Release our people

The Kaesong industrial complex – where more than 100 South Korean firms employed over 50,000 North Korean staff in a reconciliation project – suffered several political setbacks after it was set up in 2004, eventually closing in 2016.

Pyongyang abruptly withdrew all its workers in April 2013 in protest at joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington, and ordered all South Korean managers to leave immediately.

Most South Koreans managed to depart, but seven were ordered to stay until remaining wages for North Korean workers were paid, stoking fears that they would be held as hostages.

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Half-brother of N Korean leader assassinated in Malaysia

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The group were eventually allowed to return home nearly a month later, after Seoul sent a convoy carrying more than $10 million in cash across the border.

The complex resumed operations in September 2013, but last year Seoul declared the project would shut down to punish Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile tests.

The North responded a day later by expelling all southern managers and freezing all South Korean assets in the zone.

China has committed to finance at least three infrastructure projects in the Philippines worth $3.4 billion (S$4.8 billion), two of which could be rolled out in the first half of this year, trade officials from both countries said on Tuesday.

The projects were part of the Philippines’ infrastructure wish list, which it presented to China for possible financing, either through grants or loans, three months after President Rodrigo Duterte’s China state visit in October.

The loan agreements for the irrigation, water supply and railway projects have yet to be signed, but two of these projects could be launched in the first half, with the third one to be rolled out before the year ends, Wu Zhengping, director general at China’s Ministry of Commerce told a media briefing.

Read also: IMF cuts Philippines growth forecast for 2016

Manila needs additional funding to upgrade and modernise its ageing infrastructure in order to lift its growth rate to as much as 8 per cent, create more jobs and reduce poverty.

China has welcomed Duterte’s foreign policy shift away from traditional ally the United States and toward doing more regional deals for loans and business. “As we embark on renewed ties, it is imperative that we look back and recall that the ties of friendship between us were never completely severed and continue to this day,” Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said in a joint briefing with China’s new commerce minister Zhong Shan.

Read also: Duterte delegates Philippines into economic sweet spot but misgivings rising

The Philippines and China were also due to sign a six-year development programme for economic and trade co-operation later this month, Lopez said. “The two ministers talked about how China can help Philippines build more projects that have direct bearing on livelihood of Filipino population…and facilitate efforts of Philippine government to develop its economy and living standards of its people,” said Zhong.

SEOUL – Nuclear-armed North Korea said Tuesday its missile launches were training for a strike on US bases in Japan, as global condemnation of the regime swelled.

Three of the four missiles fired Monday came down provocatively close to US ally Japan, in waters that are part of its exclusive economic zone, representing a challenge to US President Donald Trump.

In separate phone calls, Trump – whose rhetoric on the campaign trail had raised doubts about the issue – reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to Japan and South Korea.

The US will demonstrate to Pyongyang that there were “very dire consequences” for its actions, the White House said in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Wednesday after a request by Washington and Tokyo to discuss additional measures following the launch.

Under UN resolutions, Pyongyang is barred from any use of ballistic missile technology, and the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Twitter that the world “won’t allow” North Korea to continue on its “destructive path”.

But six sets of UN sanctions since its first nuclear test in 2006 have failed to halt its drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.

Kim Jong-Un gave the order for the drill to start, the North’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

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The Kim dynasty: North Korea’s secretive rulers

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“Feasting his eyes on the trails of ballistic rockets”, he praised the Hwasong artillery unit that carried it out, it said.

“The four ballistic rockets launched simultaneously are so accurate that they look like acrobatic flying corps in formation, he said,” the agency added, referring to Kim.

The military units involved are “tasked to strike the bases of the US imperialist aggressor forces in Japan in contingency”, KCNA said.

The Korean version of the KCNA report said the North’s missile launch demonstrated its readiness to “wipe out” enemy forces with a “merciless nuclear strike”.

A series of photographs published by the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim watching the missiles rise into the air and another of him smiling gleefully, clapping with other officials.

Seoul and Washington last week began annual joint military exercises that always infuriate Pyongyang.

It regularly issues threats against its enemies, and carried out two atomic tests and a series of missile launches last year, but Monday was only the second time its devices have come down in Japan’s EEZ.

The launches came ahead of a trip by new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to the region.

Read Also: US detects North Korean missile launch, no threat to North America

Choi Kang, an analyst at the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said the launch was a warning to Tokyo.

“North Korea is demonstrating that its target is not just limited to the Korean peninsula anymore but can extend to Japan at anytime and even the US,” he said.

Trump has described North Korea as a “big, big problem” and vowed to deal with the issue “very strongly”.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday the administration was taking steps to “enhance our ability to defend against North Korea’s ballistic missiles”.

The New York Times reported at the weekend that under former president Barack Obama the US stepped up cyber attacks against North Korea to try to sabotage its missiles before launch or just as they lift off.

The US military has begun deploying the THAAD anti-ballistic missile defence system to South Korea to protect against threats from the North, US Pacific Command said, with its first elements arriving on Monday.

Pyongyang wants to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland – something Trump has vowed would not happen.

It has undoubtedly made progress in its efforts in recent years, although questions remain over its ability to master re-entry technology and miniaturise a nuclear weapon sufficiently to fit it onto a missile warhead.

Read Also: US starts deploying anti-missile system in S.Korea after defiant North’s latest test

The THAAD deployment has infuriated China, the North’s key diplomatic ally and crucial to efforts to persuade it to change its ways, and it has imposed several steps seen as economic retaliation against South Korea.

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Tuesday that Beijing remained “firmly opposed” to THAAD and will “resolutely take necessary measures to defend our own security interests”.

Beijing has become increasingly frustrated with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile activities, and last month announced a suspension of all coal imports from the North until the end of the year – a crucial source of foreign currency.

The North’s missile launch could have been an attempt to distract attention from the murder of Kim Jong-Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport last month, South Korea’s acting president Hwang Kyo-Ahn said Tuesday.

Seoul has blamed Pyongyang for the killing of the half-brother of the North’s leader by two women using VX nerve agent.

With diplomatic tensions soaring, Pyongyang announced Tuesday it was banning Malaysians in North Korea from leaving the country, prompting a similar response from Kuala Lumpur. Both had already expelled the other’s ambassador.

Read Also: N Korea missiles ‘drill for strike on US bases in Japan’: KCNA

Hong Kong authorities have seized more than a tonne of shark fins as activists warn traders are sneaking the sought-after delicacy into the city by mislabelling shipments to get around bans by major transporters.

The city is one of the world’s biggest markets for shark fin – often served as a soup at expensive Chinese banquets – but it prohibits the trade in products taken from endangered species.

Companies including airlines Cathay Pacific and Virgin and shipping company Maersk have barred the transportation of shark fins following public outcry over the trade, which is blamed for the deaths of tens of millions of sharks every year.

Yet in the first two months of 2017 more than a tonne of fins from endangered hammerhead sharks and oceanic whitetip sharks were seized by Hong Kong customs.

Read also: Shark takes dog at Sydney beach

Four containers of shark fin weighing 1.3 tonnes were discovered on separate occasions at Hong Kong’s main sea port and were from India, Egypt, Kenya and Peru, the government said Monday.

Anyone found trading in products from endangered species could face a fine of HK$5 million (S$908,150) and two years in jail.

The city’s government in 2013 said it would stop serving shark fin at official functions, while luxury hotel chains Shangri-La and Peninsula Hotels also took it off their menus in 2012 and 2011.

But the culture of consuming shark fin remains widespread and it is found on menus in seafood restaurants across the city.

The new seizure coincided with the publication of a report by international conservation group Sea Shepherd which said large shipments of fins were still arriving in Hong Kong, despite carrier bans.

Traders are sneaking in the product by giving them false labels, the report said.

Read also: Shark fin soup a potentially dangerous delicacy

Shipments on Virgin Airlines Cargo and Cathay Pacific have been declared as “fish products”, while other shark fin consignments have been marked as “seafood”, “dried marine products” and “dried goods”, it added.

Cathay banned shark fin shipments on all its flights in 2016, Virgin in 2011.

“As with most environment issues, the first challenge is to change the rules. But the second and much harder challenge is to enforce those rules,” Sea Shepherd said.

Its investigation found large shipments still arriving in the city in recent months, including two 45-foot (13.7 metres) containers full of fins from the Middle East.

Sea Shepherd is now helping carriers review their systems to ensure the bans are enforced.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson congratulated the Sea Shepherd team for exposing what he called a “foul” trade.

“Thousands and thousands of sharks slaughtered just for their fins to be turned into bowls of soup. For those people who have knowingly participated they need to hang their heads in shame,” he was cited as saying in Sea Shepherd’s statement.