The South Korean defence ministry said Wednesday’s agreement — which comes four years after a similar attempt failed — would allow it to benefit from Japan’s advanced intelligence-gathering equipment, which includes five satellites, four radar systems, six Aegis destroyers and 77 patrol aircraft.
But the deal was met with stinging criticism from South Korea’s opposition, which called it a “rush job”.
Ms Park’s opponents say the ongoing political scandal has undermined her mandate to push through policy. Some South Koreans also feel Japan has not sufficiently atoned for its wartime atrocities on the peninsula.
“I don’t understand why the government is so hastily pursuing such an agreement. It has been done procedurally wrong,” said Moon Chung-in, a professor at Yonsei University in Seoul. “If a new government relinquishes the agreement, relations [with Japan] will become worse. I just don’t understand it.” [Financial Times]
You can read much more at the link, but leave it to the Korean opposition to claim that 4 years to get this deal done is a “rush job”. What I think has happened is that due to the Choi Soon-sil scandal, President Park no longer has anything politically to lose by signing this deal considering how unpopular she already is.
