Record Percent of Japanese Say Ties With South Korea Are ‘Not Good’
Record Percent of Japanese Say Ties With South Korea Are ‘Not Good’
(Bloomberg) -- The proportion of Japanese who say relations with South Korea are ‘not good’ has leaped to a record 87.9%, according to a poll released by Japan’s government just ahead of a summit between the two countries’ leaders.
The figure was up on 65.7% in last year’s poll. Since then ties between the two U.S. allies have deteriorated over a range of issues, mostly relating to Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of the Korean peninsula. Trade and tourism links have been damaged in recent months.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are set to hold their first full meeting in more than a year on Christmas Eve, on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with China.
The annual Cabinet Office poll on foreign relations has posed this question to the public since 1986. It also found a slump in the proportion of respondents seeing ties with South Korea as important to 57.5% from 69.8%.
--With assistance from Takashi Hirokawa.
To contact the reporter on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Ten Kate at dtenkate@bloomberg.net, Ruth Pollard, Karen Leigh
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