My Chinese friends cannot understand why the Abe government is so “stubborn” and isn’t willingly trying to repair relations with China, while my Japanese friends wonder the same thing about the Chinese government.
Taking a look at the The 9th Japan-China Public Opinion Poll, The Diplomat breaks down the views that citizens of each country have for the other. Unsurprisingly, Japan's war crimes, and the on-going spat over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are top of the list.
The survey found that 92.8 percent of Chinese respondents hold unfavorable views of Japan, a startling 28 percent rise from the year before. Similarly, 90.1 percent of respondents in Japan had an unfavorable or relatively unfavorable view of China, compared with 84.3 percent last year. For both countries, these figures were higher than in the previous nine annual surveys conducted.
Worryingly, predictions for the future weren't optimistic, with a large proportion of respondents saying that there will be military conflict between China and Japan.
A striking 52.7 percent of Chinese respondents and 48.7 percent of their Japanese counterparts said that there will be a military conflict at some point in the future.
The article points out that while there has been much bellowing and patrotic chest-beating over the territorial disputes that both country has, little has been done in the way of trying to understand the historical reasons behind the claims. In China's case, the negative propaganda serves to bolster legitimacy of the Communist Party, and the Japanese just think that the Commies are being plain rude. Chinese analyst Zheng Wang offers some final advice:
As a first step, the two societies as well as the international community should really pay heed to the survey’s dangerous results. The media of both countries should extensively report and discuss this alarming survey. Scholars of the two countries who study the bilateral relationship have a special responsibility to help both the leaders and general public understand the real perspectives of the other side and the reasons for the huge perception gap, especially at the time when the current political and public opinion atmosphere does not allow the two governments to sit down and talk.
For their part, at least to keep up international appearances, the Japanese have actually called for high-level talks in an effort to soothe the strained relations between the two countries, it's a shame that the Chinese haven't responded in kind just yet.
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