According to the Mainichi Shimbun nationwide survey conducted on May 20–21, some 57% of respondents think that Japan’s relations with South Korea “will remain unchanged” with the installation of progressive Moon Jae-in as the new president. Meanwhile, 21% said they think relations “will deteriorate,” and 5% said they “will improve.”

During the presidential election, Moon pledged to review the Japan-South Korea accord regarding comfort women issues. In the poll, a plurality of 60% said “there is no need to review the pact,” greatly exceeding the 21% who said it “should be reviewed.”

In the poll conducted in January 2016 soon after the Japanese and South Korean governments concluded the pact under the Park administration, 65% of respondents said they “approved” of the pact while 25% said they did not.

[Polling methodology: The survey was conducted by pollsters during the two-day period of May 20–21 over the telephone across the nation on a computer-aided random digit sampling (RDS) basis. The survey excluded telephone numbers in municipalities designated as “difficult-to-return” zones due to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. A total of 1,634 households with one or more persons age 18 or over were sampled. Responses were obtained from 1,044 persons (64%).]