About 58.1 percent of South Koreans view Japan as a military threat, up from 46.3 percent the previous year, now that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to beef up postwar security policy, a survey said Friday.

The joint survey, conducted by Japanese civic group Genron NPO and South Korean think tank East Asia Institute from April to May, drew responses from around 1,000 people in each country and found that only 11.2 percent of Japanese respondents view South Korea as a military threat.

In a multiple-choice question, 83.4 percent of South Koreans and 71.6 percent of Japanese said they regard North Korea as a military threat, while 36.8 percent of South Koreans and 64.3 percent of Japanese said they viewed China as a military threat.