Most Japanese do not have ‘friendly feelings’ towards China amid Beijing’s aggression in South China Sea, Taiwan: poll

Some 86 per cent of the 3,000 respondents in the Cabinet Office survey were concerned about China’s aggression in the South China Sea, Taiwan and the Diaoyu Islands

Survey respondents that spoke to This Week in Asia clarified they did not dislike the Chinese people and culture, with their negative feelings only aimed at the Chinese government

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Chinese tourists arrive at Haneda Airport. Survey respondents that spoke to This Week in Asia clarified they did not dislike the Chinese people and culture, with their negative feelings only aimed at the Chinese government. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 9:30am, 24 Jan 2024Updated: 11:52am, 24 Jan 2024

Less than 13 per cent of Japanese have positive or “friendly feelings” towards China, according to the latest results of an annual government poll, the lowest since Tokyo introduced the survey in 1978.

The negative feelings of 86.7 per cent of the 3,000 respondents to the Cabinet Office survey, released on Friday, were reflected in interviews conducted by This Week in Asia, with many Japanese expressing concerns about Beijing’s increasingly aggressive moves in the South China Sea, as well as against Taiwan and the Diaoyu Islands that Japan calls the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims.

Some respondents also expressed dismay at the way the Uygurs of Xinjiang have been treated and the loss of democratic freedoms among the people of Hong Kong.

Survey respondents that spoke to This Week in Asia, however, emphasised that they did not dislike the Chinese people and that they held largely positive feelings towards Chinese cuisine, history, art and culture. Their dislike was aimed primarily at the government in Beijing and the Communist Party.

“The aversion that many in Japan feel towards the government in Beijing or the Communist Party is shared, I believe, by people in other countries in the free world,” said Yoichi Shimada, a professor of international relations at Fukui Prefectural University.

“Japan is just geographically closer to China, and it is our territory that Beijing is claiming, so it comes as no surprise if the distrust of China is greater here,” he told This Week in Asia.

Pedestrians walk past advertising for an entertainment establishment in the Minowa area of Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Many Japanese have positive feelings towards Taiwan, Shimada said, so when Beijing ramps up rhetoric against Taiwan or conducts threatening military moves close to its coast, distrust of China worsens while sympathy or support for Taiwan increases.