The Chinese public is more willing to look toward the future rather than the past as the relationship between China and Japan gradually improves, a new survey suggests.
Asian Neighbors' Ties Warm -- English East Day
The change can be attributed to an increase in civil communications between young people and in the media, said Wu Yin, vice-president of the Horizon Survey.
The survey on China-Japan relations was jointly sponsored by China Daily and Genron NPO, a Japanese think tank.
For the first time in the annual survey, the Nanjing Massacre was not the most common first impression Chinese people had when Japan was mentioned, being replaced this year by "electronic appliances".
Read more ....My Comment: The thing that strikes me after looking at this poll is is the seismic shift in Chinese public opinion towards Japan. When I was in China in the late 1980s, Chinese altitudes towards Japan was universally hostile and critical. The impact of Japanese aggression and the subsequent destruction of China from Japan's invasion and occupation was still fresh in the minds of the adult Chinese population, and the bitterness of that event always somehow leaked into any conversation with Japan.
The youth of today's China have different altitudes, they want to emulate the Japanese success in economic affairs .... starting with their own personal lives. Will this trend continue? .... this trend will not only continue, but probably will accelerate as the survivors of the Second World War die off, and the children of their children start to become the dominant voice in China.