For 20 years, Tokyo’s Genron NPO has been asking residents of each China and Japan the identical query: What do you consider the opposite nation? What they’ve discovered isn’t a gradual drift however a punctuated collapse – sentiment lurches additional downward with every new disaster and infrequently recovers.
On the Japanese aspect, the share of respondents with a poor impression of China rose from 38 p.c in 2005 to 89 p.c by 2024. The Chinese language trajectory has been extra unstable, swinging sharply with political occasions, however arriving on the identical vacation spot: by 2024, almost 88 p.c of Chinese language respondents reported a nasty impression of Japan. That’s not erosion. It’s a near-total inversion of public sentiment over a single era.
China and Japan, the world’s second and fourth largest economies, are additionally shut neighbors. They’ve a contentious territorial dispute within the East China Sea, and a historical past nonetheless uncooked sufficient to inflame public opinion at a second’s discover. The newest downturn in relations is properly underway.
When Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae advised Japan’s parliament in November 2025 {that a} Chinese language assault on Taiwan would represent a “survival-threatening scenario” for Japan, China responded with the complete theater of what analysts name “wolf warrior diplomacy.” Beijing suspended seafood imports from Japan, suggested its residents in opposition to touring there, suspended Japanese movie releases, and canceled performances by Japanese artists.
These political tensions have had instant social and financial penalties. China had been Japan’s second-largest supply of vacationers in 2024, sending almost 7 million guests. By December 2025, that circulate had sharply reversed – at the same time as Japan set an total document of 42.7 million vacationer arrivals for the 12 months. The timing was grimly ironic: earlier that very same 12 months, in April, China, Japan, and South Korea had collectively launched a 2025–26 cultural change 12 months, that includes music, exhibitions, and sports activities.
The Takaichi disaster didn’t create Japan’s hostility towards China, or China’s towards Japan. It was merely the most recent flare-up in a relationship that has been deteriorating for many of this century. The information present that it’s structurally caught. The disaster even swallowed the info meant to measure it: the Genron NPO’s 2025 survey – which might have captured public sentiment in each international locations on the top of the row – was postponed indefinitely after the Chinese language accomplice group pulled out, citing the diplomatic scenario. For now, there aren’t any new numbers – and that itself is telling.
The present period of adverse sentiment dates again to a minimum of 2012-, when Japan’s nationalization of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands triggered a few of the most violent anti-Japanese protests in China in a long time. The highest share of Chinese language respondents with a adverse impression of Japan was 92.8 p.c in 2013. That information was recorded the 12 months after Tokyo nationalized the disputed islands, and anti-Japanese demonstrations erupted in a number of cities throughout China.
Japanese sentiment was additionally at its worst throughout that interval. However whereas Chinese language opinion of Japan fluctuated considerably in subsequent years – bettering barely after COVID-19 journey restrictions had been lifted – the Japanese view of China barely moved in any respect. It remained close to 90 p.c unfavorable 12 months after 12 months, no matter whether or not bilateral relations had been nominally heat or chilly.
The latest Genron information from 2024, launched simply earlier than the Takaichi disaster erupted, confirmed the depth of this entrenchment. The proportion of Japanese having a nasty impression of China was 89.0 p.c – down a marginal 3.2 factors from 2023 – whereas 87.7 p.c of Chinese language respondents had a nasty impression of Japan, a near-record excessive. The numbers recommend a sort of mutual alienation that has resisted the goodwill-building efforts of tourism, enterprise ties, and cultural change.
Japan’s Cupboard Workplace 2023 diplomatic survey bolstered the image. The share of respondents who felt “aware of China” or “considerably aware of China” dropped to 12.7 p.c, the bottom for the reason that query was first included in 1978, whereas those that felt “unfamiliar with China” rose to 86.7 p.c, additionally a document excessive.
There’s a demographic cut up inside Japan. In line with the Pew Analysis Heart’s 2024 world attitudes survey, youthful Japanese are considerably extra open to China – regardless of coming of age in a extra polarized setting. Amongst Japanese adults aged 18 to 34, 38 p.c mentioned China has a optimistic affect on their nation’s financial situations, in contrast with 13 p.c of these aged 50 and older – the biggest such hole of any nation within the survey. This means that whereas total sentiment is adverse, the generational composition of that negativity is extra sophisticated than headlines suggest.
Nonetheless, this youth openness shouldn’t be mistaken for heat. It seems to mirror a practical financial evaluation – China is Japan’s largest buying and selling accomplice – somewhat than real affinity. In terms of safety and territorial disputes, younger Japanese aren’t any much less involved than their elders. And provided that Chinese language nationalism has been amplified on-line in ways in which particularly goal Japan, the area for generational goodwill to develop has narrowed significantly.
The information additionally reveals an asymmetry in how every nation views the connection. Japanese respondents within the Genron NPO’s 2024 survey understood the bilateral relationship to be necessary, if troubled – 65.1 p.c nonetheless mentioned China-Japan ties had been necessary, down from 74.8 p.c the earlier 12 months. On the Chinese language aspect, the perceived significance collapsed. The share of Chinese language respondents who consider China-Japan relations are necessary dropped from 77.9 p.c to 23.7 p.c in a single 12 months – a collapse with out precedent within the survey’s historical past.
As Genron famous within the survey overview, “Within the final twenty years, no matter how intense the inter-governmental battle between the 2 international locations grew, the proportion of respondents in each international locations who felt the connection is necessary by no means dropped beneath 60%.” Now it’s fallen beneath 30 p.c in China.
This asymmetry is diplomatically harmful. When one aspect stops caring whether or not the connection improves, the opposite aspect loses leverage. Japan’s repeated diplomatic overtures to Beijing throughout and after the Takaichi disaster – together with sending the director basic of the Asian and Oceanian Bureau to Beijing in an try to de-escalate – had been rebuffed, with Chinese language media broadcasting footage of the Japanese envoy showing to bow awkwardly to his counterpart. Humiliation, not dialogue, was the sign Beijing wished to ship.
The diplomatic rupture that started in November 2025 was not merely a product of 1 politician’s unscripted candor. Takaichi overturned Japan’s fastidiously cultivated posture of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, making express what had beforehand been implicit about Japan’s potential navy function in any cross-strait battle. However the ferocity of Beijing’s response – threatening language from diplomats, financial coercion, cancellation of cultural exchanges – paradoxically bolstered the very considerations which may justify Japan’s safety posture. Some specialists famous that the dispute really helped increase Takaichi’s home reputation.
The structural drivers of Japanese wariness towards China – territorial disputes within the East China Sea, China’s navy buildup, historic reminiscence, and the Taiwan query – should not going away. If something, Japan’s ongoing protection enlargement, which can give it the world’s third-largest protection funds by 2027, will proceed to generate friction with Beijing. The Takaichi disaster has already escalated in 2026, with China proscribing exports of uncommon earth supplies to Japan, turning financial interdependence right into a supply of strategic vulnerability.
But the info additionally comprises a thread price watching. Most Japanese nonetheless consider the bilateral relationship is necessary, particularly on the financial entrance, even when they view China negatively. A rising share of Japanese respondents – almost 30 p.c within the Sasakawa Peace Basis’s 2024 survey on Japanese views of China, up from 24 p.c in 2022 – chosen strengthening financial relations with China as one of the crucial efficient paths ahead for the bilateral relationship.
However, the Pew Analysis Heart discovered that views of China grew to become barely extra optimistic in 15 of 25 international locations surveyed in early 2025. Equally, a survey launched this April by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute exhibits that throughout ASEAN, 52 p.c of respondents would select China over the USA if compelled to resolve, in contrast with 48 p.c who favored the USA. Taken collectively, these outcomes may be seen partly as a counterreaction to perceived American unpredictability underneath the Trump administration.
Japan is unlikely to be a part of that world softening anytime quickly. The Takaichi disaster has additional eroded what little goodwill remained on either side. However the survey information, amassed patiently over 20 years, tells a extra sophisticated story than pure hostility: a Japanese public that distrusts China profoundly however has not but given up on the concept that the connection issues. Whether or not that lingering perception survives the subsequent disaster – or the one after that – might finally rely much less on diplomats than on whether or not the 2 governments can discover a method to cease manufacturing crises to start with.
