66% of Chinese say boycotting Japan products: poll

TOKYO, Jan. 5, Kyodo

Two-thirds of Chinese have refrained from buying Japanese products since the Japanese government's purchase in September of a significant part of a group of islands [1] at the center of a bitter dispute with Beijing, a Kyodo News online survey showed Saturday.
About 95 percent of 1,000 Chinese, both men and women aged 20 or older from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces who responded to the survey, said that the purchase of the islands from their private owner has intensified anti-Japan sentiment in their country.
The survey, conducted on 1,000 people in both Japan and China from late November through early December, also highlighted a gap in the way they view one another, with 31 percent of Chinese saying Japan is trustworthy despite the territorial dispute, and just 5 percent of Japanese saying they can trust China.

Japan-China relations have sunk to their lowest level in years since the government's purchase of the Senkaku Islands. The uninhabited islands in the East China Sea were administered by Japan for decades even before the purchase, but are claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
The recent soured ties between Asia's two biggest economies stem from the announcement in April last year by then Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara that the metropolitan government intended buying three of the islands from their Japanese owner.
Japanese central government officials have said the purchase was aimed at making it easier to manage the Senkakus over the long term.
But the survey found 79 percent of the Chinese feel the Japanese governments' explanation of the purchase as incomprehensible.
More than 65 percent of both the Japanese and Chinese respondents said they did not feel like visiting the other country, it showed.
Asked on whether ties between the two nations need development, 71 percent of the Chinese agreed, while 60 percent of the Japanese were also in favor.
On anti-Japan demonstrations that erupted across China after the purchase, 24 percent of the Chinese respondents took part in the protests, while 74 percent of those polled answered that although they could understand the feelings of the protesters, their behavior went too far.
The survey also showed that 63 percent of the Chinese polled did not know that Japan has offered yen loans worth more than 3 trillion yen to China in the past.
Satoshi Amako, a Waseda University Asian studies professor, said the deteriorating feelings in both countries in the wake of the renewed dispute were not surprising.
But the survey suggested that "China is not completely in an anti-Japan mood," Amako said, citing that nearly three-quarters of the Chinese believe that the protests were excessive.
Although Chinese in their 20s are said to be heavily influenced by the increased patriotism and anti-Japan sentiment in its school systems in the 1990s, he said that it is noteworthy that almost 40 percent of those surveyed in the age bracket answered that Japan can be trusted.
The survey was carried out by Kyodo News with the help of research firms Searchina (Shanghai) Co., Tokyo-based Nippon Research Center Ltd. and Amako.
.kyodonews.jp
5/1/13
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• [1] Senkaku/Diaoyu issue