About 57% of South Koreans see Japan as a “militaristic state”
More than 58 percent of those polled in South Korea thought Japan was a “military threat” to their country, 2nd only to North Korea.
[In May, the cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved new legislation authorizing Japan to expand its military outreach and play an international role beyond self-defense. In January, Planet of the Abes approved its largest military budget since WWII, raising it to about 5 trillion yen, or about US$42 billion.]
Tokyo-based Genron NPO, together with its South Korean partner, the East Asia Institute, have published the findings of a joint public opinion survey concerning “the course of mutual understanding and views among the peoples of Japan and South Korea.”
In their third survey of its kind, each of the two think tanks interviewed about 1,000 people in their respective countries, ahead of a landmark meeting between the South Korean and Japanese defense ministers to be held in Tokyo on June 21, just a day before the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan.
Sentiments among Japanese and South Korean peoples toward each other’s country, and their views about the current situation of Japan-South Korea relations worsened sharply last year, and this year’s survey showed no sign of improvement. The situation in South Korea remains harsher even than last year, said Genron.
Highlights of the Survey
- Almost 80 percent of Korean respondents despised the Japanese, while 52 percent of Japanese felt the same way about South Koreans.
- Nearly 57 percent of South Koreans saw Japan far worse than just a threat, but a “militaristic state,” up from 53.1 percent in 2014.
- About 65 percent of “well-informed” S. Korean respondents felt there was a strong current of “nationalism” in today’s Japan, up from 57.8 percent last year.
- More than 58 percent of the respondents thought Japan was a “military threat” to South Korea. Japan ranked only second to North Korea (83.4 percent), and China (36.8 percent), meaning that Korean people perceived Japan as a greater military threat to their country than China.
- As many as 37.8 percent of the S. Koreans said a military clash between Japan and South Korea was likely, compared to 9.3 percent for the Japanese respondents. The corresponding figure among S. Korean intellectuals was much higher, at 43 percent.
Japan Continues to Deny its WWII Atrocities: Former “Comfort Women” seek Japan’s apology for WWII rapes
SURVIVING WWII ‘COMFORT WOMAN’ – Downloaded under Creative Commons License – Source: http://flickr.com/photos/keithpr/772549382/sizes/o/
Former Filipino “comfort woman” Piedad Nobleza, 86, holds slogans during a demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy in suburban Manila on Friday Aug. 15, 2008. Elderly Filipino women and their supporters demanded Tokyo’s clear-cut apology and compensation for wartime sexual slavery by Japanese troops. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila). Image may be subject to copyright.
Rangoon, Burma. August 8, 1945. An ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army’s “comfort battalions” is interviewed by an Allied officer. Source: Comfort Women
Former “comfort woman” Lee Yong-Soo (L) stands beside her supporters holding portraits of Chinese, Philippine, South Korean and Taiwanese comfort women who were sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, at a protest held in front of the Japanese parliament in Tokyo, in this 14 June 2007 file photo. Japan on 27 June 2007 brushed aside calls from US lawmakers for a fresh apology to wartime sex slaves, even as the former “comfort women” renewed their demands for Tokyo to acknowledge their plight. Japan said the US move to pass a resolution calling for an “unambiguous” apology from Japan for the coercion of women into army brothels during World War II would not damage relations between the two allies. Photo from Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images. Caption Daily life. Image may be subject to copyright.
SURVIVING WWII ‘COMFORT WOMAN’ awaiting justice! Source: Survivor_1. Creative commons license. Some rights reserved.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
FIRE-EARTH Population Models show Japan as the greatest military threat in the region, not only due to its culture and history, but especially because of its dependency on foreign energy, food and material resources, which is also reflected in its current program of re-militarization.
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