In his recent speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida declared that he is willing to hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “without any preconditions,” in what most observers have viewed as an innocuous restatement of Tokyo’s long-standing policy.

That has hardly been the reaction of certain segments of the South Korean political left, however, as a number of high-profile politicians and commenters have raised alarm that Tokyo is planning a major diplomatic push toward Pyongyang that will strand Seoul on the outside looking in.