The election of Lee Jae-myung as South Korea’s president has returned inter-Korean diplomacy to the regional spotlight. While Lee has yet to lay out a fully detailed roadmap, his early messaging points to a more cautious and conditional posture toward North Korea, with the goal of balancing deterrence with measured opportunities for dialogue. This recalibration in Seoul presents Japan with both a challenge and an opportunity.
With Tokyo’s diplomacy toward Pyongyang long stalled since the collapse of the 2014 Stockholm Agreement, Japan now has a narrow window to reconsider whether bilateral engagement is still possible. And more importantly, Japan must critically think about how it could be done differently this time. To do this, Japan must re-evaluate its tools at disposal, study the limitations of its past approach, and craft a more pragmatic strategy grounded in structure that can back up its intentions.
While it is too early to predict how Lee will shape Seoul’s approach to Pyongyang, his administration will likely bring a shift in tone and pacing. Messaging throughout Lee’s presidential election campaign suggested an openness to conditional engagement, potentially tied to phased exchanges or reciprocal actions. Recently, when now-President Lee ordered the halting of loudspeaker broadcasts at the inter-Korean border, the government deliberately used the term “pause” rather than “termination,” implying that the measure could be reversed depending on future developments. This should be taken as a signal that Lee aims to deviate from the traditional paths of his liberal predecessors, toward a more calibrated mix of dialogue and deterrence. Lee should be evaluated as a strategist, and one should be careful about placing him within the established ideological classification. Although specifics remain unclear, adjustments in Seoul’s policy could influence how North Korea calculates its options, potentially leading to change in the inter-Korean dynamics.
For Japan, this matters. A more engaging and strategized inter-Korean framework could offer entry points that Tokyo can use to begin rethinking its own approach. If North Korea begins responding to phased engagements from Seoul – such as technical cooperation on health infrastructure or public diplomacy through civilians exchanging letters – Pyongyang may become more open to considering parallel, though distinct, talks with Japan. While not guaranteed, it is a pattern worth watching. North Korea has, in the past, used dialogue with one actor to gain diplomatic leverage with others, particularly when it sees a chance to extract concessions without appearing isolated.
The key point is that Lee’s approach introduces new diplomatic movement in a region long frozen in stalemate. Japan does not need to mirror South Korea’s strategy, but it should be prepared to respond with a carefully calibrated one of its own.
For Tokyo, what has been missing is a clear vision of how to re-engage. Japan has long framed the Japanese abductions issue as central, but framing alone is not enough. Without a strategy that balances principle with pragmatism, Tokyo is left reacting to developments in Seoul, Washington, or Pyongyang, rather than being actively involved to shape them.
In 2014, Japan and North Korea reached a rare diplomatic milestone through the Stockholm Agreement. North Korea pledged to reinvestigate the situation of Japanese abductees, while Japan agreed to ease some unilateral sanctions as a reciprocal measure. But within two years, the agreement collapsed. While Pyongyang’s opacity and provocations played a major role, Tokyo’s own approach also contributed. And those shortcomings remain relevant today.
Throughout the Stockholm Agreement, Japan placed significant weight on moral language and symbolic commitments, but failed to build in mechanisms to manage setbacks or hold the process together when commitments from the agreement began to erode. Tokyo’s expectations were high, but its ability to verify progress, adapt timelines, or enforce consequences was limited. When North Korea began delaying its deliverables and reframing its commitments, Japan had no structured response. Japanese policymakers were only left with frustration and eventual retreat.
The lesson is not that Japan should compromise its core principles. Rather, principled diplomacy must be supported by strategy and structure. Future engagement must include clearer pacing, internal alignment on goals and red lines, and fallback options for when momentum begins to stall. Without such structure, Japan risks repeating the cycle of symbolic diplomacy followed by breakdown.
To avoid another deadlock, Japan must rethink both the structure and the scope of its engagement. The abductions issue remains a moral and political priority. However, making it the sole topic of negotiation limits the potential for meaningful progress. North Korea has long claimed the matter is closed, and Japan’s insistence on it as the only agenda on the negotiating table leads quickly to diplomatic impasse. A more flexible strategy would be to retain the abductions issue as a core goal, while also introducing a wider range of topics as periphery agendas. These could include concerns surrounding the repatriated Zainichi Korean and their Japanese spouses through the “Paradise on Earth” campaign, an issue that would broaden the negotiating space.
More topics mean more room to negotiate. It means more ways for diplomacy to move forward. Framing the dialogue more broadly could also serve Japan’s internal political interests. For Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru, diversifying the agenda would create more indicators for progress and potential diplomatic wins. Even modest movement on secondary issues could demonstrate momentum and help Ishiba gain political capital, which would allow him to act on other salient domestic agendas. The challenge is not to dilute Japan’s priorities, but to embed them in a strategy that is informed, adaptable, and responsive to the regional shifts now taking shape.
With South Korea’s new president preparing to recalibrate Pyongyang policy, the regional diplomatic landscape is bound to shift soon. For Japan, this is a chance to move beyond the rhetorical repetition and take pragmatic steps toward renewed bilateral engagement. The opportunity will only be meaningful if Tokyo avoids the missteps of 2014, when the Stockholm Agreement collapsed under the weight of good intentions and rhetoric unsupported by strategy. Clear goals, a broader agenda, and mechanisms to manage North Korea’s opaque actions and to react accordingly must replace symbolic diplomacy.
If Japan is serious about resolving the Japanese abductions issue and normalizing relations with North Korea, it must act – not with symbols and sentiment, but with structure embedded with strategy – before the next opening closes.