« Ben is Stupid: The Sequel | Main | Radioblog! »
August 11, 2005
One-Sided Love
The Japan Times runs an editorial today that discusses polls of perception of "warmth" by national populations toward Japan and vice versa.
In China, 83 percent of the pollees say they feel little or no warmth toward Japan. The corresponding figure in South Korea is 75 percent. Both figures represent a worsening of sentiment toward Japan since the previous poll in 2002. At that time, people who felt little or no warmth toward Japan accounted for 67 percent in China and 69 percent in South Korea.By contrast, 48 percent in Japan hold either some or strong feelings of warmth toward China; and 58 percent toward South Korea. Interestingly, while the figure for China represents a decrease of six percentage points from the 2002 poll, the corresponding figure for South Korea has gone up by five percentage points probably due to the "Hanryu" boom or heightened interest among Japanese in South Korean movies and TV dramas.
In the other poll conducted in early July in Japan and the U.S., to which some 1,000 people responded in each country, 52 percent of the Japanese pollees say the U.S. government cannot be trusted, an increase of 26 percentage points from a similar poll in 1991. By contrast, 59 percent in the U.S. regard the Japanese government as trustworthy.
Americans' general warm feeling toward Japan is not reciprocated by Japanese. While 81 percent in the U.S. say they feel some warmth or have a strong warm feeling toward Japan, only 68 percent in Japan have such a feeling toward the U.S.
What a fascinating interplay of culture and politics. It'll be interesting to see if Koizumi goes through with his Yasukuni Shrine visit this year.
Posted by b-applegate at August 11, 2005 2:59 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://blogs.princeton.edu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/308