According to NetEase News, the Japanese non-profit team "Speech NPO" released a poll on the favorability of Japanese people toward China this year, which is useful and Sino-Japanese relations, and this survey shows that 90.9% of Japanese people have a "bad" impression of China, and in November last year, this data was still 89.7%. Of the 90.9 percent of the "bad" impressions, 66.1 percent are directly "poor" or "extremely poor," a poll that is even much higher than the United States, which has been struggling with China in recent years. This means that in the whole of Japan, anti-China has a very strong public opinion base, and the possibility of any Japanese government wanting to improve Sino-Japanese relations in the short term is almost zero.
Japanese people have a low liking for China, Chinese their liking for Japan is not high, and the "speech NPO" itself shows that 52.9% of Chinese have a "bad" or "negative" impression of Japan, in fact, from our daily observations, 52.9% of the data is obviously far underestimated. How did the mutual impression of the Chinese and Japanese people come to this point step by step? Among them, the Japanese government is mainly responsible for its attitude towards history and China's core interests.
Figure 1 The Chinese and Japanese people do not have a good impression of each other
When it comes to Sino-Japanese relations, historical issues are always indispensable. Japan's invasion of China caused deep disasters to China, but at the end of World War II, Japan received very little punishment. After Japan announced its unconditional surrender, most Japanese soldiers returned home under the protection of the United States, except for a few heinous war criminals who were sentenced to death. This is not called surrender, but retreat, just like a group of robbers running to your house to kill people and set fires, one day suddenly said I can't beat you, I went home, many neighbors will not let you take revenge, everyone will hold a fire in their hearts.
Of course, the punishment for Japan is insufficient, and if we are compensated enough, it can be regarded as a psychological comfort. However, Chiang Kai-shek, who had a problem with his brain, gave up not only sending troops to occupy Japan, but also gave up taking the initiative to claim compensation against Japan, making the Chinese nation the only wronged leader in this war. Therefore, emotionally speaking, this painful memory of Japan in China is difficult to erase, and the Japanese government must restore compensation.
However, instead of reflecting on history, the Japanese government, which has committed evil deeds, has provoked China's painful historical memory again and again. For example, Japan has not yet recognized the Nanjing Massacre, even if it is ironclad evidence; for example, almost every newly appointed Japanese prime minister has to go to the Yasukuni shrine to "worship ghosts", but some go in the name of the government, some go in the name of private individuals, and some send tributes, on the whole, there is no good person.
Many Japanese politicians still regard World War II sinners as national heroes, and even think that Japanese war criminals went to China to "liberate the people" as propaganda in the Yasukuni Shrine toilet, and have done no wrong to China but have made meritorious contributions! Once there is a diplomatic conflict between China and Japan, this distorted ideology will spread out, making many Japanese people think that "China not only does not thank Japan, but blames Japan", resulting in the japanese as a whole anti-China.
Figure 2 The inability to correctly understand that the war of aggression against China is the core
Another reason why the Chinese and Japanese people have a bad impression of each other is that both sides believe that World War II did not divide the victory and defeat, for China, the Japanese army finally surrendered and returned to China, not was wiped out on the battlefield, and we lacked some annihilation battles like the three major battles to make the Japanese convinced. In the eyes of the Japanese, it was the Soviet Union and the United States that gave the Japanese army a devastating blow, and China only contained the Japanese troops, especially the Kuomintang did not see the hope of defeating Japan independently until the last year of the War of Resistance, and was still under siege, so the Japanese believed that Japan's surrender was to the United States and the Soviet Union, not to China, plus Japan still had the demand for the first major influence in East Asia, so it was more and more unfavorable to China.
The logical thinking of the Japanese is actually very simple, "I didn't lose to China in the past, and now I can win." Chinese believes that "an unfinished vendetta always needs an opportunity." As a result, as soon as core interest issues such as the Diaoyu Dao and the Taiwan Strait issue were touched, the hostility between the Chinese and Japanese people immediately rose to an unprecedented height. Japanese politicians are actually even more incompetent, because their political system determines that politicians basically rely on populism and agitation for propaganda to achieve their goals, so being tough on China has basically become a political correctness, and no one dares to touch it.
China has nowhere to be sorry for Japan: it has not seized a single piece of Japanese territory, it has not supported Russia on the issue of the four northern islands, it has not seen death in the face of Japan's economic recession, and it has not prevented Japanese entrepreneurs from entering China to make a fortune. Today, Japan's largest trading partner and largest source of overseas profits is China, and China really does not know how to make it friendly to Japan.
China has always been good to Japan, but Japan has always repaid Germany with resentment. After Suga took office in 2020, he first jointly issued anti-China and Taiwan-related statements with Biden, and then said on different occasions that "we want to deter China", and also actively formed the US-Japan-Australia-India Quadrilateral Alliance, and even sent some officials to visit Taiwan in an official capacity to discuss defense cooperation and industrial restructuring and other issues, which are hurting the feelings of the Chinese people and challenging China's political bottom line.
Figure 3 Conquer Japan and become the new emperor
In contrast, Japan's master, the United States, has first used the Plaza Accord to kill Japan's economic miracle in the past four decades, and then purged the Japanese political arena, smashed the Japanese people's attempt to stand on their own, firmly controlled Japan's airspace, diplomatic power and military combat rights, and blackmailed a lot of military spending during the Trump period. Even so, the Japanese have a surprisingly good impression of the United States. Some people say that the Japanese can only be conquered, not friendly exchanges, which is indeed possible. Perhaps only when China and Japan really divide the victory and defeat, will the Japanese people's impression of China improve? For example, MacArthur, after subduing Japan, could be their new emperor.