Japan-China Public Opinion Poll: Fake Information Might Be Worsening Chinese People’s View of Japan

Editorial

15:00 JST, December 7, 2024

Chinese social media is filled with anti-Japanese posts that are far from true. This could be the background to the drastic worsening of Chinese people’s impressions of Japan

The results of the 20th Japan-China Joint Public Opinion Poll, conducted by The Genron NPO and China International Publishing Group, have been announced.

The percentage of Chinese respondents who answered that their impression of Japan was “poor” or “relatively poor” was 87.7%, an increase of 24.8 points from the previous year. This is the second-highest figure since 2013, the year after the Japanese government nationalized the Senkaku Islands.

The percentage of Japanese respondents who said their impression of China was “poor” or “relatively poor” was 89%, showing no significant change from the previous year. This means that, despite there having been no situations that have led to major confrontations between Japan and China in the past year, only the Chinese view of Japan has deteriorated significantly.

The proportion of Chinese respondents who said that Japan-China relations were “unimportant” or “relatively unimportant” rose by 40.5 points year-on-year to 59.6%, reaching a record high. In Japan, 67.1% of respondents said the Japan-China relationship is “important” or “relatively important.”

The deterioration in sentiment among Chinese people toward Japan is utterly astonishing. There are probably various factors behind it, but in addition to China’s anti-Japanese education and its recent hard-line stance toward Japan, it is undeniable that the widespread dissemination of incorrect information about Japan via the internet is amplifying the impact.

When asked about the issues that are hindering the development of Japan-China relations, the most common response from the Chinese side was the release of treated water from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean, at about 36%. The Chinese administration has called the treated water “nuclear contaminated water” and has been mobilizing the media under its control to stir up the public to believe the water is dangerous.

In China, many people obtain information about Japan from Chinese news media, and more than half of them obtain it from mobile devices. Chinese social media is monitored by the authorities, and posts critical of the Chinese Communist Party regime are deleted.

However, slanderous posts about Japan are often given tacit nods as an outlet for frustration. False assertions such as Japanese schools in China are “training bases for spies” also continue to circulate. If there is a connection to the attacks on Japanese people that have been occurring in various parts of China, it is a serious matter.

While people-to-people exchanges between Japan and China have not fully recovered even after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is not a favorable situation that cooperation between the two countries is hampered by extreme discourse amid growing reliance on online information in both countries.

Recently, China has agreed with Japan to gradually resume imports of Japanese marine products and has also reinstated the visa exemption for short-stay Japanese visitors to China. This probably means that China wants to stabilize its relationship with Japan.

If this is the case, China should refrain from sending out messages that undermine Japan and work to resolve issues between Japan and China, such as the detention of Japanese nationals.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 7, 2024)