Why was Kim Dae-Jung kidnapped in 1973?

In 1973, Kim Dae-Jung was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by agents of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and forcibly returned to South Korea.12

The kidnapping was a direct response to Kim’s role as a prominent opposition leader who had been conducting an active antigovernment campaign in the United States and Japan. By the early 1970s, President Park Chung-Hee had implemented the repressive Yushin ("Revitalization Reform") order, which granted him essentially dictatorial powers. Kim Dae-Jung, who had narrowly lost to Park in the 1971 presidential election, was viewed as a significant threat to the regime due to his outspoken criticism of these authoritarian policies and his efforts to restore democracy. The abduction was an attempt by the government to silence this influential political opponent.123