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Most Japanese see a need to improve ties with China

Nearly 80 percent of Japanese believe their country needs to improve relations with China, which have been at a low ebb due largely to rows over their World War II history, a government survey said.

Some 78 percent believed Japan needed to develop better ties with China and 59 percent believed the "gap in understanding history" was a cause of poor relations, the foreign ministry said late on Wednesday.

Only 29 percent listed a heated dispute over gas reserves in the East China Sea as a reason for the sour ties, said the study, which surveyed 2,000 people last month.

But 46.5 percent were optimistic that relations would improve over the next two decades, far outnumbering the 24 percent who believe ties will stay the same and 11 percent who think they will get worse. The rest were undecided.

Relations between Japan and China have sunk in recent years, in part because of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a Tokyo war shrine.

China, which was invaded by Japan in the last century, has refused meetings with Koizumi due to his annual pilgrimage to Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 top war criminals.

The survey also found that 71 percent of Japanese believe that the country's peace and security are due to its alliance with the US.

But 55 percent said that the US should reduce its military presence in Okinawa, which hosts three-quarters of the US military facilities in Japan and half of the more than 40,000 troops.
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