Japan’s public perception of China: Are things on the mend with Hatoyama?

In my previous post I discussed Japanese popular sentiment and some of its internal contradictions. Here is a Chart I have generated from the National Polls, conducted by the Cabinet Office on various questions. This question is “Do you trust China?”, or perhaps, "do you feel China is a trustworthy country."

Chart first, discussion later.



What I think I see here is the marked effect of Hatoyama’s victory on Japanese public opinion towards China. Hatayama was elected in August, and assumed office on September 16th. The polling for the 2009 Cabinet Office Public Opinion Survey was carried out October, (15-25th). With all the rhetoric fresh and without actually having done anything, this is almost ideal timing to see what the effect of a regime change is on public perceptions. Of course, we must not discount the fact that Aso managed, dispute himself, not to cause any major trouble in the Sino-Japanese relationship and kept it on an even till. But this he inherited from Fukuda, and neither Abe, Aso or Fukuda between them the three of them were able to improve public opinion towards China, with trust at historic lows since the Koizumi period.

Digging into the data a little more, some interesting trends come out. Firstly, compared to last year, the overall improvement of little of 8% is a little misleading. The improvement is larger, because if we disaggregate the “Do not trust (at all)” and “Do not trust, rather than trust” then we see that movement toward the latter. Secondly, the big shift was not where it mattered. The 20 to 30 year old shifting 5%, in other words the “average” adjustment. The big shift was in the 50-60, and 60-70 year olds who already tended to have a higher trust. The recovery, in other words, has not returned Japan back to pre-Koizumi times, even among the section of the population most likely to make a difference in Japan’s future policy.

Raw data can be found here.