Fumio Kishida recently became Japan’s 100th prime minister, and his election has kick-started debate about whether the new leader will inaugurate a different era in relations between Tokyo and the two Koreas.

Japan has a dominant-party system, but the factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) are roughly analogous to parties in more conventional democracies. When it comes to foreign policy issues, Kishida belongs to the “doves” who have demonstrated significant interest in the Korean Peninsula, unlike his hawkish predecessors.

This has led some South Korean media outlets and think tanks to claim that the new prime minister will