South Korea’s Lotte Group officially called on the government to come to its aid to protect its operations in China and business from all-around bombardment from China after it finalized a deal to yield its location for the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile battery.

The country’s fifth largest conglomerate held a meeting among senior executives under the head of Hwang Gak-gyu, president of policy coordination, on Sunday to demand diplomatic, trade and industrial intervention from the government.

In latest retaliatory actions, four Lotte Mart stores in Shenyang, Shanghai and other cities were suspended for allegedly breaking fire regulations.

“It is a clear retaliation for issuing business suspension for violation fire regulations. More Lotte Mart stores could be shut down,” said an industry expert.

Lotte runs five department stores, 99 Lotte Mart stores and 16 Lotte Super stores through 22 affiliates across China with 26,000 employees. It reportedly has invested more than 10 trillion won ($8.7 billion) in the Chinese operation since 1994.

China halted a 3 trillion won construction project for Lotte World Town in the northeastern city of Shenyang. It gave specific order to travel agencies to avoid stops in Lotte venues including duty free shops on top of ban on sales of packaged or individual trips to Korea.

Lotte’s Chinese website went down Tuesday from mysterious virus attack.

Lotte last week signed a contract with the Korean defense ministry to swap its golf course in the mountains of Seongju County in southern region chosen by Korean and U.S. authorities to install the THAAD defense system for a military site in Gyeonggi Province. Beijing considers the U.S. missile system as a threat to its security interests while Seoul and Washington argue its deployment necessary for deterrence and protection against escalating missile and nuclear threat from Pyongyang.

By Sohn Il-seon

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