Two-thirds of Chinese boycotted Japanese products and almost all Chinese feel anti-Japan sentiment has intensified in the world's second-largest economy since the government purchased three the Senkaku islets in September, a Kyodo News online survey revealed Saturday.
The findings also highlighted a disparity in the way Chinese and Japanese view one another, with roughly one-third of the Chinese respondents feeling they can still trust Japan despite the Senkakus territorial row, while only 5 percent of the Japanese polled gave a similar answer.
More than 65 percent of both the Japanese and Chinese respondents said they have not felt like visiting the other country since Japan in mid-September effectively nationalized the Senkaku islet chain claimed by Beijing in the East China Sea, according to the survey.
Asked whether ties between the two nations need to improve, 71 percent of the Chinese respondents and 60 percent of the Japanese polled agreed.
The survey was conducted by research firms Searchina (Shanghai) Co., based in Shanghai, and Nippon Research Center Ltd. in Tokyo from late November through early December. Searchina selected 1,000 Chinese from some 550,000 people registered with the company in China, and Nippon Research chose 1,000 Japanese from some 260,000 people who responded to the poll in Japan.
On the violent anti-Japanese demonstrations that broke out across China in September, 24 percent of the Chinese respondents said they had taken part in the protests, but 74 percent of those polled said that although they can understand the feelings of the demonstrators, their behavior went too far.
The survey also found that 63 percent of the Chinese polled were unaware that Japan had offered yen loans of more than ¥3 trillion to China.