Ramon Pacheco Pardo, an associate professor in international relations at King's College London and KF-VUB Korea Chair, said there is room for cooperation between the Seoul and Tokyo despite existing tensions.

"[Moon] can manage tensions by focusing on areas of common interest such as managing global problems such as climate change in multilateral fora, supporting trade openness, or maritime and cybersecurity," he told Nikkei Asia. "South Korea and Japan could also cooperate in the provision of aid and other economic support to North Korea, which Japanese firms don't want to be left out of anyway."