China would hurt its own economic and strategic interests if it takes retaliatory measures against South Korea for Seoul's decision to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile defense system, a U.S. expert said Tuesday.

China has strongly protested the decision to place a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense unit in South Korea, claiming the system could be used against the country, despite repeated assurances from Seoul and Washington that the battery is aimed only at defending against North Korean missile threats.

"China does not have the capability to punish South Korea without damaging its own economic and strategic interests on the Korean peninsula," Scott Snyder, a senior Korea analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an article on the CFR's website.

Chinese threats of punishment are likely to alienate rather than win over the South Korean public, while risking damage to a vibrant economic relationship that has brought China and South Korea together, the expert said.

"Threats to cut off economic ties or discriminate against South Korean exports are inconsistent with China's World Trade Organization obligations and will generate resentment among the South Korean public. China cannot hope to maintain friendly relations with its neighbors through economic threats or bullying," he said.

China might consider retaliation against South Korea by boosting its relations with North Korea and refusing to render full cooperation for efforts to rein in Pyongyang, but such measures are counterproductive to China's own strategic interests, Snyder said.

"China needs to retain good relations with South Korea as part of its long-term interest in ensuring that the Korean peninsula is friendly to Chinese interests, knowing that a unified Korea's future strategic orientation is far more likely to be shaped by Seoul than Pyongyang," he said.

"Closer Chinese relations with North Korea are not an effective means of punishment against South Korea given that it is in China's interests to do more to bring the North Korean nuclear threat under control," he said.

China's objections to THAAD both underscore Chinese sensitivity to the U.S. presence on the peninsula and make clear China's desire to limit the scope of the U.S.-South Korea alliance to North Korea in the near-term while hoping that it will disappear completely as part of any process that might lead to Korean unification, Snyder said. (Yonhap)