Using the excuse of the North Korean nuclear crisis, the US is promoting the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system on the soil of South Korea. It has not only gone far beyond what the Peninsula actually needs for defense, but has also directly harmed strategic security interests of both China and Russia.

I believe that discussions under the framework of international law over how the Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea (henceforth the Mutual Defense Treaty) injures the UN's collective security system, and violates basic principles of the UN Charter, as well as disproving the treaty's legitimacy are urgent and necessary means to safeguard China's security interests.

As one of the results of WWII, the UN was formed in 1945. It then established a series of principles such as prohibition on the use of force, peaceful solution of international disputes and obligations including strictly adhering to the UN Charter. In the meantime, it  also  set up the UN Security Council, made global rules and treaties over disarmament or arms control, and constructed the UN collective security system. However, Washington has been turning a deaf ear to the system, while focusing on building the US-Japan, US-South Korea military alliances, abusing the right of collective self-defense in  Article 51 of the UN Charter, hoping to replace the UN collective security system by its bilateral military alliance, in order to contain the socialist camp that used to be led by then Soviet Union.

For the purpose of maintaining US military presence on the Korean Peninsula, Washington signed the Mutual Defense Treaty with Seoul on August 8, 1953, not long after the Korean Armistice Agreement was reached. Based on the spirit of the treaty, the two sides later signed a protocol regarding Korean-American military and economic matters, as well as similar notes over establishment of arsenals and production of arms. After that, the White House has kept a number of its troops in South Korea, transported a large quantities of weapons to the country, established its military bases in Incheon and elsewhere, set up a Combined Forces Command in Seoul, and has held joint military drills with South Korea many times, all of which has raised tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

It is worth noting that the Mutual Defense Treaty is clearly not a defense strategy, and is even far from collective self-defense in the Article 51 of the UN Charter. Quite a few foreign scholars have expressed this view. For example, Jost Delbrück, a German professor of international law has commented that "the growth of the regional collective self-defense organizations and the almost negligible role of the regional arrangements according to Article 52 and 53 of the Charter constitute a return by the international community to the more traditional - balance of power concepts and strategies for the maintenance of international peace and security."

Hersch Lauterpacht, a renowned British professor of international law who died in 1960, also believed that in order to safeguard world peace and security, the UN Security Council, not the military alliances that are exercising collective self-defense, had the right to decide whether or not to adopt necessary measures. Regional treaties that aim at military confrontation will make no contribution to cautious exercise of the right of collective self-defense. On the contrary, it will hinder the UN collective security mechanism. That is an abuse of the right of collective self-defense.

The heavy dependence of the US on its own large and complicated alliance system is obviously running against the ideology of the current design of UN collective security. The signing of the Mutual Defense Treaty has severely jeopardized the UN collective security system. Therefore, it lacks of legitimacy, and legal validity. The US, as a member of the UN Security Council, should be devotedly fulfilling the obligations in the UN Charter, standing up for the UN collective security system, and solve the regional and international hotspot issues via security council under the principles of International Law as well as the UN Charter. Given a basic rule of the UN Charter over the ban on the threat or use of force, the US should end its bilateral and multilateral military alliances.

On that score, China should also consider disavowing  the  military mutual aid promised in the Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance.

The author is an International Law professor at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, and head of the Institute of Military Law. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn Follow us on Twitter @GTopinion