South Korean President Lee Jae-myung reported in a June 8 press conference, that while he acknowledges the “realistic necessity” of reaching an agreement with Japan allowing both countries to provide military logistical support to one another, including ammunition, fuel, food and transportation services during operations and emergencies, “public sentiment” in Korea does not yet permit any such agreement to be signed.
As the Korean Herald noted two weeks ago in reporting that such a South Korea-Japan Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) has been discussed, “the issue remains politically sensitive due to public concerns stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and broader unease over military cooperation with Tokyo"—quite a polite understatement! The prospect of Japanese Self-Defense Forces being deployed to the Korean Peninsula during “a contingency … evokes memories of Japan’s use of the Korean Peninsula as a military staging ground for its expansion into China and other parts of the Asian mainland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” it added.
The United States Department of Defense cum War has been pressuring South Korea to reach such agreement, to further institutionalize the trilateral “security cooperation” between the U.S., Japan and South Korea, which it deludes itself would bolster U.S. efforts to contain or confront China.
