The South Korean corporation Lotte decided on February 27 to hand over its golf course in Seongju/Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province to the South Korean Defense Ministry to enable the highly controversial deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system there. The defense ministry will soon hand over the golf course to the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK), which will turn it into a base for the THAAD system.
What is at stake for the residents of Seongju and Gimcheon, who say they don’t want the weapons base in their town and have been fighting against the THAAD deployment since last July? And what are the broader geopolitical interests at play surrounding this issue?

ZoominKorea’s Julian Cho and Hyun Lee explore these questions in our pilot podcast, which includes an exclusive interview with women farmers in Seongju and Gimcheon–Lee Hae-kyoung, Kim Jong, Yoon Geum-soon and Ham Soo-yeon–who have been on the front lines of the fight against the THAAD deployment.