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Foreign and Military Affairs

Chinese bullish on Japan's future economic growth

By Li Xiaokun (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-16 07:10

Chinese bullish on Japan's future economic growth

BEIJING - The results of the Chinese-Japanese joint survey issued on Saturday found Chinese people are more positive about the future of Japan than the Japanese.

Nearly 40 percent of Chinese students and one in five Chinese citizens believed Japan would be a "mid-level country with very strong influence" in 2050, according to the survey.

But in Japan, the most popular choice, selected by 25 percent of respondents, was that the country would be a mid-level country "without any influence" in 40 years. Sixteen percent thought Japan would have a strong influence, but less than one in 10 believed Japan will remain the world's third largest economy by the middle of this century.

Xu Dunxin, China's former ambassador to Japan, said this result showed the Japanese people's attitude to domestic reality. The Japanese government could not find a good solution to the country's economic problems, which made the Japanese insecure about the country's future.

However, more than 45 percent of Japanese citizens and four students in 10 believed China will compete with United States for the top spot in 2050.

Nearly four in 10 Chinese citizens tagged Japan as "militaristic", with more than one in five Chinese citizens believing Japan will develop a large military by 2050.

More than three in five Chinese students and 50 percent of Chinese citizens saw Japan as a military threat, second only to the US, and half the responding Japanese students and seven in 10 Japanese citizens showed the same concern about China, which came second to the DPRK.

Feng Zhaokui, the former director of the Japan Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the Japanese government's negative behavior on a series of historical issues has hurt the Chinese. So he feels it is understandable for the Chinese people to show such attitude to Japan.

"The lack of direct communication between China and Japan and the biased reports from the media of both countries have been a major contributor to the long-term misunderstanding between the two sides."

The survey showed that among 15 famous incidents in Japanese history, Chinese citizens are most familiar with those happening before and around the end of the World War II.

However, less than one in 10 ordinary Chinese people know any postwar Japanese historical incident.

Xu said," Actually, the two sides know little about each other. We need more direct communication between the people of both countries, especially between the youth."

Xu also said, the media of both countries, which are the main channel for the public to obtain information, should be more neutral.

Yang Jin contributed to the story.