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Last week Pew released public opinion survey results of ten different Asia Pacific countries on favorability perceptions of each other. Ankit Panda at The Diplomat provides excellent analysis of the report and we want to add to the conversation here with particular interest in how South Korea fits it. (We’d be even more interested in getting public opinion survey data of North Koreans but apparently Pew hasn’t been able to crack that market yet). The survey reflects some of the themes that we have seen in other opinion polls that we’ve reported on—most recently here and here. Namely, China and South Korea showed very low favorability perceptions of Japan and vice versa (surprise, surprise!), but generational cleavages somewhat skew these results in a way that gives us a glimmer of hope. The survey results also indicate that in the aggregate Asians are uneasy about China’s rise.
Despite the still very salient China-Korea-Japan historical animosities, for the most part publics in the Asia Pacific perceive each other favorably and an interesting finding of the survey is that when taken as a whole Japan has the highest favorability ratings and lowest unfavorability ratings by far of the four major countries in the region. (By Pew’s assessment these major countries include Japan, China, India, and South Korea). It’s sometimes helpful to remove ourselves from the context of Japan-South Korea relations and see the bigger picture that Japan is doing quite well for itself image-wise in most of Asia.
The other figure that pops out from this graph is that China has the highest unfavorability ratings and the fewest “do not know”s suggesting that Asian publics have an opinion on China one way or the other more than the other countries. If you subtract all the unfavorable responses from favorable responses for China and Japan, Japan has a +58 rating and China a +24 rating. That’s a pretty big spread and evidence that Asia by-in-large thinks that Japan’s vision (democracy, technology, investment, and aid) trumps China’s vision (authoritarianism, investment, and aid). And although China is expanding its influence substantially, Japan is still in the game: gradually unfettering its military and continuing to invest heavily in Asia. In fact, in May Prime Minister Abe announced a $110 billion aid package for Asia, eclipsing the expected initial $100 billion capitalization that China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is seeking. (For posts on the AIIB see here and here). Since the Japanese Empire collapsed Japan has reemerged as a benign global power and contributed significantly to Asian development, but China still has some work to do to convince its neighbors it has good intentions for them.
South Korea for its part has the lowest favorability ratings out of the four major countries but the report notes that this reflects the high percentage of “do not know” responses—65% of Pakistanis and 52% of Indians expressed no view of South Korea at all. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese (82%), Filipinos (68%), Malaysians (61%) and Australians (61%) have majority favorable opinions of South Korea. And, in fact, of the major countries South Korea has “unfavorable” perception results below that of India and China, and its favorable perceptions outweigh the negative by a margin of two-to-one. This suggests that South Korea is still emerging as a significant Asian power but not ruffling too many feathers, and that the “Korean wave” still has some ground to cover.
Certainly an issue accounting for a chunk of the unfavorable opinions toward China mentioned above, the poll also includes a question about concerns over China’s territorial disputes. The Asian countries that show the highest concern are the Philippines (91%), Vietnam (83%), Japan (83%), and South Korea (78%). The percentage for South Korea seems quite high and although I’ve argued that the ROK’s territorial disputes with China are a bigger deal long-term than Seoul’s territorial issues with Tokyo—despite how much the Dokdo/Takeshima issue is pushed in South Korea today—the figure likely appears inflated because of the wording of the question: “How concerned are you, if at all, about territorial disputes between China and neighboring countries?” The question doesn’t say “and your country.” So some of the “concerned” responses are likely picking up peripheral concerns from informed South Koreans who realize that simmering territorial disputes between China and other neighboring countries could affect South Korea politically and economically too. Further, South Korea’s “very concerned” tallies are much lower than those in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan further suggesting ROK-China territorial disputes are still on the backburner.
Regarding Japan, unsurprisingly China and South Korea give it the lowest favorability marks—12% and 25%, respectively—results far below Japan’s average of 71% Asia Pacific-wide. The Japanese public in turn assign even lower favorability ratings to China (9%) and South Korea (21%). A separate Pew poll from 2013 found that a full 98% of South Koreans and 78% of Chinese said that Japan had not apologized sufficiently for its military actions in the 1930s and 1940s. Historical animosity runs deep on both sides. But the thin silver lining particularly for South Korea-Japan relations is the finding that the younger generation in South Korea views Japan much more favorably than the older generation. (There is a 34% point differential between the 18-29 age bracket versus the over 50 bracket; the report does not list age-based Japanese responses about South Korea). In fact, the generational cleavages regarding favorability perceptions of Japan are more pronounced in South Korea than anywhere else. And these results correspond with another recent East Asia Institute/Genron NPO report that shows that younger South Koreans and Japanese view each other more favorably than the older generation. Japan-ROK relations are characterized by a frustrating “two steps forwards, one step back” process but these polls suggest that at the very least the upcoming generations are holding onto less animosity than the ones before them.
