Friendliness between Japan and Korea is withering?

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    The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports the obvious:

    According to a survey by Gallup Korea and the Japan Research Center, 20 percent of Koreans have friendly feelings towards Japan and 36 percent of Japanese felt the same towards Korea.

    In a 2002 survey by the Chosun Ilbo and Mainichi Shimbun, 35 percent of Koreans and 69 percent of Japanese had friendly views of the other country.

    When asked the reason for their antipathy, most Koreans cited the territorial dispute over the Dok-do Islets, while most Japanese said they’re turned off by anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea.

    The Dokdo/Takeshima dispute became a major issue in Korea in recent years, with one of the most noteworthy incidents being the 2003 public display of anti-Japanese artwork in a Seoul train station. The pictures, which a local elementary school had assigned its students to draw, were shockingly hateful and received media attention in Japan:

    When your neighbor is proudly displaying artwork that shows your entire country being slaughtered by a giant exacto-knife, it’s pretty obvious that friendly feelings towards that neighbor are going to decline…

    But if they aren’t feeling the need for friendship with eachother, who are they looking towards?

    When asked which country Korea should be close with, Koreans chose the U.S. (37 percent), North Korea (28 percent), China (20 percent), and Japan (5 percent). Japanese said Japan should be closest to the U.S. (42 percent), China (17 percent), South Korea (6 percent) and North Korea (3 percent).

    Well, at least the South Korean can claim Japan prefers it to North Korea….

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