"Like for Korea" among Japanese at highest level in 11 years... Korean reactions worsen instead

"Diverging Favorability Levels in 'National Mutual Perception Survey'
"Attitudes of Both Governments on Improving Relations Affect Impressions""

The number of Japanese people who have a favorable impression of Korea has reached its highest level in 11 years. In contrast, the number of Koreans who have a favorable impression of Japan has slightly decreased.

The East Asia Institute (EAI) and Genron NPO, private research institutes from both Korea and Japan, announced the results of the "11th Korea-Japan Mutual Perception Survey" on the 12th. The survey was conducted in August and September with 1,000 adults from each country.

Among the Japanese respondents, 37.4% answered that their impression of Korea was "good" or "mostly good," an increase of 7.0 percentage points (p) compared to last year's survey result of 30.4%.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

These two research institutes have conducted the same survey annually since 2013. This figure is much higher than the previous highest level of 29.1% recorded in 2016.

The percentage of Japanese respondents who answered that their impression of Korea was "not good" or "mostly not good" significantly decreased from 40.3% last year to 32.8%. The remaining respondents answered "neither."

While the perception of Korea among Japanese people has greatly improved, the improvement in Koreans' perception of Japan was not evident. The proportion of Koreans who answered that their impression of Japan was "good" or "mostly good" was 28.9%, slightly down from 30.6% last year.

The negative response rate increased by 0.5 percentage points, from 52.8% to 53.3%.

Regarding the reason for the significant difference in the trend of mutual favorability between the two countries, the East Asia Institute analyzed, "Among the variables that determine the impression of the other country, the attitude toward the improvement of bilateral government relations is likely a factor. Koreans are not highly supportive of the resolution of the forced mobilization issue during the Japanese colonial period, and thus are dissatisfied with the attitudes of both governments."

In fact, 34.8% of Japanese respondents positively evaluated the attitude of the Korea-Japan governments toward improving relations, while only 21.7% of Koreans did so, revealing a gap in perception.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.