Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s support ratings have taken a hit, with many voters expressing dismay with his Cabinet’s handling of a diplomatic row with China, newspaper polls showed yesterday.
Kan left for Brussels yesterday on a hastily arranged trip to rally support at an international forum for Tokyo’s position in the spat. He is due to meet with the leaders of South Korea, Vietnam and Singapore at the Asia-Europe Meeting, though no talks are planned with China.
Kan’s government faced widespread criticism in Japan for the decision to release a Chinese fishing boat captain whose trawler collided with Japanese patrol vessels near disputed islands last month. The incident stirred up nationalism in both countries and the move to free the captain was seen as caving in to Chinese pressure.
Kan’s chief spokesman has said the decision to release the captain was not a political one, but entirely up to local prosecutors — who nonetheless pointed to strained ties with Beijing as a reason for their decision.
A poll in the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest, showed support for Kan’s government has fallen to 53 percent from 66 percent two weeks earlier, and 72 percent of respondents felt the captain’s release was “not appropriate.”
A separate poll in the Mainichi Shimbun showed support sank to 49 percent from 64 percent. About 87 percent of voters were unconvinced that the release was an independent decision by local prosecutors.
Even with the slip in support, however, backing for the government remains higher than three months ago, when Kan was heavily criticized after his party’s loss in upper house elections. In the previous polls two weeks ago, voter support had surged after he survived a leadership challenge from within his own party.
Hundreds of right-wing activists and lawmakers rallied over the weekend in Tokyo, accusing China of “invading” the contested islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyutai (釣魚台) in Taiwan and China, while criticizing Kan’s government for its “defeat” by Beijing.
Tensions between the two countries have eased somewhat after the captain’s return to China and Beijing also apparently lifted what was believed to have been a ban on Japan-bound exports of rare earth metals needed for advanced manufacturing.
China last week released three of four Japanese detained for questioning after allegedly entering a restricted military zone.
Neither newspaper gave margins of error for the surveys, which were conducted by random telephone interviews. The Yomiuri polled 1,104 people and the Mainichi surveyed 996 people, and surveys of that size would generally have a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
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