Japan Tops Pew Poll as Most Favorably Viewed Nation In Asia By Other Asians

With all the negative press that Japan constantly gets beaten with over historical issues it is actually a bit surprising that Japan is not only the most favorably viewed nation in Asia by other Asian nations, but by a wide margin over #2 China.  I was surprised to see China at #2 considering the various territorial land grab schemes they have going on with various neighboring countries:

The coming decades promise to be the Asian Century, when the most populous region, with some of the world’s fastest growing economies, is likely to become the global nexus of commercial, cultural and geopolitical activity. For this reason, how people in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, see each other and their leaders is of growing importance.

Overall, despite historical and territorial frictions, Asia-Pacific publics tend to view their regional neighbors in a positive light, with Japan judged most favorably. But these same publics also express limited confidence in the region’s most prominent national leaders when it comes to their handling of international issues. These are some of the findings from a new Pew Research Center survey of 15,313 people in 10 Asia-Pacific nations and the U.S. conducted from April 6 to May 27, 2015.

No Leader Has Majority’s ConfidenceA median of 71% in the region have a favorable view of Japan, with positive views exceeding negative sentiment by more than five-to-one.1 A median of 57% voice a favorable opinion of China. Roughly half (51%) see India in a positive light. And just under half (47%) give South Korea a thumbs-up, in part due to a higher proportion of those surveyed who express no opinion. Nevertheless, favorable views of South Korea outweigh negative sentiment by two-to-one.  [Pew Research Center]

You can read more at the link, but something else of interest from the poll is that 61% of South Koreans have a favorable view of China and only 25% have a favorable view of Japan.  This shows the power the media and the political class have had in South Korea in shaping public opinion about Japan.  China is the nation with its own territorial squabble with South Korea, tried by military force to destroy the Republic of Korea, responsible for the killing of more Koreans during the Korean War than Imperial Japan ever committed, continues to enable the Kim regime committed to destroying the ROK, interferes in ROK internal affairs, and maintains a modern day comfort women system of Korean women.  This is all overlooked by the ROK public because of the constant sensationalism given to Dokdo and historical issues with Japan that pail in comparison to what the Chinese have done to Korea more recently.