Sino-Japanese Relations: Implications for Southeast Asia‪.‬

Introduction China's post-Cold War relations with Japan have been largely stable. Yet this stability can hardly disguise the uneasiness in that relationship. Domestically, according to a latest public opinion poll conducted by the Institute of Japanese Studies, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, only 5.9 per cent of Chinese said that Japan was "very friendly" or "friendly" while 43.3 per cent said the opposite. In Japan, the number of those who think China friendly has experienced a dramatic fall, from 75.4 per cent in 1985 to 47.5 per cent in 2001 and the number of those who think China unfriendly reached 48.1 per cent in the same year. (1) Internationally, while China is concerned about the increasing expansion of the Japanese military's role, Japan is worried about the "China threat".