Anti-Japanese Sentiment Easing in S. Korea: Poll

The country`s negative sentiment toward Japan has greatly eased over the past five years, while that toward North Korea has slightly grown, the results of a survey released yesterday said.

Marking the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War and the centennial anniversary of Japan`s annexation of the Korean Peninsula, the Korea Research Center asked 1,000 men and women nationwide on their perceptions of Japan and North Korea.

According to the survey, 35.9 percent said they hate Japan while 10.8 percent said they like it. The remaining 52 percent said they neither hate nor like Japan.

Given that 63.4 percent of Koreans said they hated Japan in a joint survey conducted by The Dong-A Ilbo and the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun in March 2005, anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea has markedly eased.

On the proposed visit to Korea by Japanese Emperor Akihito as suggested by President Lee Myung-bak in September last year, 64.2 percent said they have no problem with the visit since bilateral relations have improved. More than 31 percent opposed the visit.

Switching to North Korea, 9.2 percent said they like the North while 33.8 percent said the opposite. In the 2005 survey, the figures were 26.8 percent and 26.3 percent, respectively.

On the dispute over the revised plan for Sejong City, 55.9 percent agreed with the government`s planned revision of the original blueprint to make the city a science and business complex. Around 30 percent favored the original plan.

The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

yongari@donga.com