Korea-Japan Emotionally Distanced. More Koreans Say They “Dislike Japan“ a 15 Percent Increase

While the emotional distance between Korea and Japan that had been gradually narrowing last year, it has again widened this year. It`s because of the injured relationship of the two countries by the history textbook problem. The problem of the history, in other words, is that the Japanese consciousness of history is very crucial for the good relationship between the two nations and the Koreans do not think the problem will be resolved soon.

According to the joint survey of the Donga and Asahi on the people from 4 countries including Korea, Japan, U.S. China, 57 percent of Koreans `disliked Japanese` which is 15 percent increased from last year. Compared to the 39 percent who answered that they thought the Korea-Japan relationship was `getting better` last year come up 14 percent this year.

The negative perspective of the Korea-Japan relationship is basically related to the problem of the past history between the two nations. While 90 percent of the Korean think that the history is crucial for the Korea-Japan relationship, only 18 percent think that the problem could be resolved. The Japanese people also think that the past history is important for the Korea-Japan relationship (67 percent) but 44 percent of Japanese people expected that the problems related with past history `can be resolved` which reveals the big difference of the thought on this issue.

Over 80 percent of both Koreans and Japanese recognize that the education of the bad history to the next generation is `important`. And 42 percent of Koreans thinks that it is a `difficult` job and 58 percent answered `not so difficult,` compared to the 45 percent and 49 percent of Japanese respondents respectively.

China, whose relationship with Japan has been worse by the Japanese history textbook distortion, showed a similar result. 62 percent were negative to the China-Japan relationship, 87 percent thought the past history is `important` for the future China-Japan relationship, and they agreed to the significance of the history education. However, 52 percent of respondents thought positive for the question whether the history problem can be resolved, which is quite different from the thoughts of Koreans.

sunny60@donga.com