Beijing, November 17 The results of the 16th Beijing-Tokyo Forum “Sino-Japanese Relations Public Opinion Survey” jointly implemented by the China Foreign Languages Bureau and the Japanese NPO were published online for the first time on the 17th. Released in Beijing and Tokyo.
The survey shows that affected by Coronavirus pandemic, changes in the Japanese political situation, and China-US relations and other practical issues, the number of Chinese respondents who hold a wait-and-see attitude towards the current Sino-Japanese relations has increased.
Gao Anming, deputy director of the China Foreign Languages Bureau, explained the Chinese survey data, the basic situation of the survey and the main findings.
He pointed out that the survey showed that when respondents were asked how they view the current Sino-Japanese relations, 22.1% of them chose “good” or “relatively good”, a decrease of 12.2 percentage points from 2019; they chose “relatively bad” or The “poor” ratio is 22.6%, which is also a drop of 13 percentage points from 2019.
However, affected by Coronavirus pandemic, changes in Japan’s political situation, and China-US relations and other practical issues, Chinese respondents showed signs of further wait-and-see on the current positioning of China-Japan relations. 54% of the respondents are “unintelligible” about the current Sino-Japanese relations, which is a significant increase over the previous two years (24.3% in 2018, 29.4% in 2019).
The survey results show that in the choice of reasons for a bad impression of Japan, “Japan did not sincerely apologize and reflect on the history of aggression against China” at the top of the list, with a ratio of 74.1%, an increase of 13.6 percentage points from 2019. Ranked second is “Japan’s’nationalization’ of the Diaoyu Islands caused a confrontation between the two countries”, with a ratio of 53.3%.
The survey also shows that the US factor has risen to a new reality hindering the development of Sino-Japanese relations. When asked about “the main factors hindering Sino-Japanese relations”, 27.8% of Chinese respondents chose the trend of Sino-US confrontation, an increase of 17.8 percentage points from 2019, ranking second only to “China-Japan territorial disputes.” When asked why they feel that Japan is a threat, 64.9% of Chinese respondents believe that Japan and the United States have joined forces to contain China militarily.
At the same time, Chinese interviewees have eased their sense of crisis of Japanese military threats. The survey results show that when Chinese respondents were asked about “there are specific countries or regions that pose a military threat to China,” Japan fell to the second place (47.9%), a drop of 27.4 percentage points from 2019, which is a significant drop. 45.7% of Chinese respondents believe that the two countries will not have military conflicts over territorial disputes over the Diaoyu Islands, an increase of 11.4 percentage points from 2019.
It is reported that the 16th Beijing-Tokyo Forum will hold online conferences in Beijing and Tokyo from November 30 to December 1. The theme of this forum is “The International Order after the pandemic and the Role of China and Japan” . The forum, held since 2005, is currently one of the high-level public exchange platforms between China and Japan.
