Feelings about U.S. are complex / Disaster relief operations appreciated, but major ally not fully trusted

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Ninety-four percent of Japanese respondents to a recent opinion poll appreciate the U.S. military's relief operations for Japan in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

According to the joint survey conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun and Gallup from late November to early December, 94 percent of Japanese respondents said they appreciate the relief operations, in which up to 20,000 U.S. service members each day searched for missing people, transported relief supplies and engaged in other emergency activities.

Seventy-five percent of U.S. respondents were satisfied with the U.S. operations.

However, the poll also revealed that Japanese appreciation of U.S. help after the March 11 disaster did not necessarily result in improved feelings toward the United States.

For the second year in a row, the number of Japanese respondents who viewed Japan-U.S. relations negatively outnumbered those who saw the relations positively.

The percentage of Japanese who said Japan-U.S relations were "good" or "very good" was 35 percent, while the percentage of those who called relations "poor" or "very poor" was 41 percent. The figures went up by 2 percentage points and 1 percentage point from last year, respectively.

The percentage of respondents who said they trust the United States "very much" or "somewhat" was 47 percent, down 5 points from 2010. Forty-two percent said they do not trust the country "very much" or "at all," up 5 points from last year.

Eighty-two percent of Japanese respondents think the lack of progress on relocating the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture has had a negative impact on the bilateral relationship, up 3 percentage points from last year. This result may suggest that Japanese people's anxiety over the Japan-U.S. alliance is preventing their feelings toward the United States from improving.

Meanwhile, 52 percent of U.S. respondents said Japan-U.S relations were "good" or "very good," while only 8 percent of them said the relations were "poor" or "very poor." On the Futenma Air Station issue, 59 percent said they do not know much about the topic--an answer choice only available for U.S. respondents.

The percentage of respondents who said Japan should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade accord was 50 percent in Japan and 72 percent in the United States.

On a question asking respondents to choose domestic institutions they trust--with multiple answers allowed--the Self-Defense Forces topped the Japanese list with 75 percent, up 12 percentage points from last year. It was the first time the SDF was chosen as the most reliable institution.

The telephone survey was conducted on 1,023 people in Japan from Dec. 2 to Dec. 4, and on 1,006 people in the United States from Nov. 28 to Dec. 4.