It’s been a bad year for China-Japan relations. That’s reflected in a new report that says Chinese sentiments towards Japan have taken a huge dip.
The report from Japan’s Genron NPO and China International Denpa surveyed people in both countries on how they felt about the other nation. The survey included 10,000 people across Japan and around 1,500 people from 10 cities in China.
Attitudes towards China from Japan remained relatively sour. About 10.6% hold a favorable impression of China, with 89% holding an unfavorable impression. And those numbers are an improvement! The unfavorability score fell by 3.2 points. For the past decade, it’s hovered steadily in the high 80s.
By contrast, negative impressions from Chinese people towards Japan had softened in recent years, hovering in the low 60s. That’s changed this year, however, as Japan’s unfavorability rating in the eyes of China spiked by 24.8 points to 87.7%. The spike marks a 20-year low in relations between the two countries.
The real reason for the backlash?
The top reason given for the low opinion is the disputed Senkaku Islands. The islands, known as the Diaoyu Islands in China, are a string of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea west of Okinawa.
However, nothing’s happened regarding the disputed islands since 2012, when Tokyo and the Japanese central governments bought three islands from the Kurihara family, effectively nationalizing the island cluster. China vigorously opposed the move, saying it’s owned the islands since the 14th century.
More recently, the two countries have argued over Japan’s release of wastewater from its nuclear power plant in Fukushima into the ocean. China has argued the action amounts to “nuclear pollution” and banned seafood imports from Fukushima in response, citing consumer health. The two countries have since come to an agreement over wastewater release.
Another potential factor, says Sankei Shimbun, is a spike in anti-Japanese hate fomented on Chinese social media sites. The rhetoric has spilled into the real world, with Chinese authorities and cosplay events cracking down on people wearing traditional Japanese clothing such as kimono and yukata.
Earlier this year, a comic convention in Jinan kicked out a cosplayer who tried entering dressed as Kamado Nezuko from the popular anime Demon Slayer, saying yukata weren’t allowed at the event. In 2022, police carted off a woman for “provoking trouble” when she took pictures of herself in Japanese dress in Suzhou’s Little Tokyo district.
China has also cracked down on other forms of dress, such as Halloween costumes, which Chinese citizens have leveraged in the past to criticize their government.
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Sources
「日本の印象良くない」9割弱…中国の対日感情が悪化 世論調査で両国とも最低水準に. Sankei Shimbun
Senkaku Islands. Wikipedia
“No Kimonos Allowed” – Ongoing Debate on Japanese Attire in China. What’s on Weibo
日本代表 福島第一原発の処理水放出で中国に反論 IAEA総会. NHK News
Fukushima: The fishy business of China’s outrage over Japan’s release. BBC
