I have a trouble with this sentence, and I hope you could help me.

"As much as Seoul and Tokyo pledged closer cooperation toward their common goal, greater distance is felt between China and its two neighbors to the east."

It's from newspaper editorials, and I think there shold be a definite article 'the' in front of 'greater'.

Because it seems similar to the 'the more~, the more-' phrase.

Below is an example of the 'the more~, the more-' phrase, in case I failed to make it understood.

-> The more I study, the more confused I become. Actually, this is what I feel now :(

And if my assumption is right, 'closer' needs an article too.

So the correct sentence would be

"As much as Seoul and Tokyo pledged the closer cooperation toward their common goal, the greater distance is felt between China and its two neighbors to the east."

I have seen many minor spelling errors in the papers, but this one seems to be more serious to me.

So I came here asking for help.

Thank you for reading my post and have a nice day.