52% of Japanese don't trust U.S. government

More than half of the Japanese public doesn't trust the U.S. government, but 59 percent of Americans consider Tokyo trustworthy, according to a joint public perception survey by Kyodo News and the Associated Press.

The survey, conducted earlier this month to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, covered 1,045 respondents aged 20 or older in Japan and 1,000 aged 18 or older in the United States.

Japanese distrust of the U.S. was up 26 percentage points, reaching 52 percent, from a similar survey in 1991, shortly after the Gulf War. The figure appears to reflect rising concern about the unilateralism of President George W. Bush's administration on foreign and security policy.