JAPAN-CHINA: Moving closer, say students and academics

Sino-Japanese ties, dogged by historical colonial wounds, have grown closer thanks to increasing economic interdependency, according to responses from students and academics polled in both countries. And relations could improve further with more university contacts and exchanges.

Results released in August show as many as three out of four Chinese view the country's relationship with Japan as 'good', and while the Japanese are less positive, at around 54%, overall support for better ties has grown among the two groups compared with 2009.

"Optimism is expressed by both sides and is rising slowly each year even though distrust is also apparent," said Taijo Yamashita of Genron NPO, a think-tank in Tokyo that conducted the sixth annual survey together with the Beijing-based China Daily, the leading English-language newspaper.

China Daily also conducted a separate poll covering Chinese university students, with the Japanese side conducting a supplementary survey of intelligentsia, a mixture of academics and students.

An overwhelming majority of replies - around 90% on both sides - described each other's country as 'important' with economic cooperation listed as positive for their development.

Yamashita said the results have convinced experts there is a vital need to promote more personal exchanges between people in both countries.

"The steady increase in better understanding between Chinese and Japanese people can be attributed to growing personal contacts. Chinese visitors to Japan as tourists or students and vice versa are increasing, so I predict warmer ties in the future," he said.

Japanese colonisation in northern China, or Manchuria, in the 1930s and1940s still evokes bitter memories.

On the crucial issue of trust, the surveys show rising support for each other despite low overall percentages recorded among those polled.

For example the question on history: when asked whether economic collaboration would change lingering negativism over colonisation, both sides replied that the two issues should be treated separately, indicating they did not want historical issues to interfere with friendship.

It was also interesting to note that around 40% of Chinese students chose the infamous Nanking Massacre as the symbol that came to mind when talking about their history with Japan, compared with half of Chinese students previously - a drop of 10%.

The Japanese side showed a slight drop in their image of China as a closed communist country - high at 28% in 2010 compared with 24% in 2007 when this question was first introduced. Genron NPO explained that this could be because of recent reports of clamp-downs in China.

A revealing fact gleaned from the survey was the prominent role played by the media in shaping public opinion, because direct contact between the two national groups continued to be limited.

Chinese students cited the internet and television as the primary sources of information about Japan (84.4%). For Japan about China, it was 55.2%.

In 2009, there were 79,000 Chinese students enrolled in Japanese universities according to the Japan Student Services Organisation. Japanese studying in China, according to the Ministry of Education, numbered 18,000 in 2006.

The joint survey listed 40 questions aimed at collecting public opinions on how each side viewed the other. The surveys covered economic and political issues as well as cultural and social themes. More than 1,000 written replies have been received this year.