Over 80％ in U.S. Unaware of Nihon Hidankyo’s Nobel Peace Prize: Poll

Jiji Press

12:33 JST, February 16, 2025

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Over 80% of people in the United States do not know that the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, a survey has shown.

According to the survey released by the Japan Press Research Institute on Saturday, 80.7% of respondents in the United States said they do not know about the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner, while the proportion of such respondents stood at 73.3 pct in Britain, 65.1 pct in Russia, 65.0% in South Korea and 55.8% in France.

The proportions of respondents who said that they knew of Nihon Hidankyo’s award and the reason behind it stood below 10 pct in all seven countries polled.

The public opinion survey, the 11th of its kind by the institute, was conducted over two months through last December, gaining responses from around 1,000 people each in the United States, Britain, France, South Korea, Thailand, Russia and India. The latest poll included Russia and India for the first time.

Regarding nuclear weapons, 69.2% of Russian respondents said that they believe such weapons will be used in the next 10 years, the most among polled countries and far outnumbering the 26.3% who did not think so.

Additionally, 65.8% of Russians said owning nuclear weapons was inevitable.

The survey also polled each country’s sentiment toward Japan. Thailand had the most positive sentiment, with 93.1% viewing Japan favorably, followed by the United States’ 87.8% and Britain’s 81.4%. South Korea came last with 40.6%, down 3.4 percentage points from the proportion in the previous survey which was a record high for the country.