Qian Zimu: China-Japan friendship depends on South Korea? What is the impression of the Japanese people in China and South Korea?

[Text/Observer Network Columnist Qian Zimu]

In the first half of this year, due to the epidemic, the phrase "Mountains and rivers are different, wind and moon are in the same sky" frequently appeared in domestic Japanese news, and various Japanese organizations donated The news about masks in support of China's fight against the epidemic has been on Weibo for many times, pushing the Chinese people's goodwill towards Japan to a new climax.

really should express our sincere thanks for the kind encouragement and support from the Japanese government and the people. But at the same time, the author noticed that South Korea’s donation to China is not small, but the attention and gratitude it has gained is very little. Comparing the two, the treatment can be called a world of difference.

The relationship between China, Japan and South Korea can be described as peculiar. In recent years, the public opinion has also circulated a rather ridiculous statement that "China-Japan friendship depends on South Korea, and China-South Korea friendship depends on Japan." However, is this really the case? Is it true that "China-Japan friendship depends on South Korea" or just wishful thinking of the Chinese? What is the attitude of the Japanese people towards China and South Korea?

The author here for the time being from the perspective of a student studying in Japan, combining my own personal experience in the past four years and observations of public opinion between China and Japan on each other, to talk about my feelings.

stated in advance that because most of the people I have come into contact with are young people on campus, this article focuses on the young people I have met in Japan, mainly college students.

Japanese people like South Korea more than China

First of all, when speaking of their Japanese peers' understanding of China as a whole, they understand in their hearts that China is very strong and a big country from the perspective of national hard power. Especially in recent years, the major Japanese news media have often compared China and the United States together, and they have also analyzed and compared China and Japan's technological and economic development from time to time. In my opinion, this should be regarded as a recognition of China's strength. They still have a relatively broad and positive consensus on whether to establish a good relationship with China.

But from the perspective of soft power, Japanese young people obviously have a higher affinity for South Korea. They think Koreans are more fashionable and interesting. They think South Korea is clean and sanitary, and traveling to South Korea is a good choice. The opposite attitude towards China is China. People are of low quality, rich but dressed up (this perception has improved in recent years), similar to the stereotypes of some people in Shanxi coal bosses in the past. In their perception, China's environment is dirty, chaotic, and poor, with houses and roads exploding or collapsing at every turn.

There is a girl who plans to come to a 211 university in Shanghai, China to study abroad. This is Shanghai. It is the most developed city in China. As a result, what she got was not the blessings of relatives and friends, but worries. They generally think that China is very Dangerous, I hope she can "come back alive" when she goes to China to exchange and study (a joke, but she is really worried and uneasy). After that, the girl also traveled to Vietnam and the Philippines, but her family and friends did not show any worries. This comparison, one can imagine what image China is in their minds.

's attitude towards the products of the two countries, the young people I have come into contact with are many girls from China, Kazakhstan and South Korea. They will take the initiative to buy Korean cosmetics and idol peripheral products, but they despise and ridicule Chinese products. Maybe it’s because you are familiar with me. The few girls I know are not too shy about discussing Made in China in front of me. If I hear "Made in CHINA", I feel "extremely" "terrible" and "forget it." Now, hahaha"...It's such a simple and straightforward mockery.

Seeing this, some people may think that China and Japan will have a common topic on the point that they hate South Korea. As the saying goes, "China-Japan friendship depends on South Korea."

The comic

teasing the relationship between China, Japan and South Korea actually has reservations about this statement. It may be because most of the Japanese middle-aged and elderly men they contacted (mainly on the Internet), or they saw online messages selected and translated by domestic media. For these, I often jokingly call it "gold panning in shit." If you include young people in general, young women in particular will have a higher affinity for South Korea than for China-of course, the majority of people who hate China and South Korea as a whole.

Here is a set of data for reference. In 2019, the Cabinet Office of Japan conducted a survey on the people’s affinity for the so-called “5 major countries” (China, South Korea, Russia, the United States, and India). Among them, the top three countries with unfavorable feelings were Russia (76.2%), China (74.9%), South Korea (71.5%).

Chart source: Japanese Cabinet Office

Last year, Japan and South Korea had a lot of friction, which led to a sharp decline in Japanese people’s favor with Korea and a slight increase in their favor with China. In other words, the above data is based on the result of a sharp decline in favorability towards South Korea and a slight increase in favorability towards China.

China and Japan’s non-governmental mutual evaluations are contrary to the fact that the media of the two countries have “contributed”

.

The favorability of one side has been rising year after year, while the other side still maintains a high-intensity negative impression. Why is there such a misalignment in the evaluation of the Chinese and Japanese people? The author believes that the role played by the media of the two countries is "indispensable."

In recent years, it is not difficult to find that many self-media accounts on Weibo, Station B, and Douyin like to select positive comments made by Japanese people on China or Chinese in Japanese news. But as far as I have lived in Japan in the past few years, I have often read magazines and newspapers and read online news reviews. It can be said that when I see friendly comments about China and Chinese people, they are almost always the result of selection—— Again, it's "gold panning in shit". The author really does not understand why some Japanese information accounts bother to one-sidedly exaggerate the advantages of Japan to domestic netizens, but rarely report negative news about Japan and negative sentiment towards China. In the real public opinion, if there are a hundred comments under relevant Chinese news, in proportion, there are 98 bad comments (including abuse, curse, ridicule, discrimination, and the highest number of bad comments is often tens of thousands), 1 One neutral comment, one friendly comment posted by a Chinese in Japan (you can basically confirm that it is Chinese by looking at the user name and click-in message record).

According to the author's observation, Japanese media reports on China can be roughly divided into three types:

1. It is purely black and black, with no real basis. Such as ethnic issues, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan issues.

2. Under the skin of objective neutrality, it seems to report advanced things in China, but the article tries its best to entrain private goods and induce readers to think about bad things. Such as reports on mobile payment, large-scale project construction and other events.

3. Relatively true and objective reports, showing China's development and progress. Such as reports on the rise in the international rankings of Chinese universities, the latest scientific research results in China, and so on. The proportion of such reports is the smallest, but the number is slowly increasing in recent years. Japan's public opinion on China during the

epidemic may explain the problem from another angle. Reports from the two countries during the

epidemic

Just as the new crown epidemic broke out in China, a reporter from a Japanese TV station tried to induce the tourist to say “Japan is safe, so come to Japan” when interviewing a Chinese tourist. Then I used this to vigorously hype Chinese tourists to Japan to spread the plague. Although it was finally found that most of the transmission paths that came to Japan originally came from Europe and the United States, the pot has been detained by the Chinese. The result can be said to be cursed by the entire Internet. At that time, the hate speech of Japanese netizens against the Chinese was massive. .

Immediately afterwards, the Japanese media began to speculate on Chinese tourists buying masks in Japan in large quantities, saying that it was for high-price resale. Finally, a department similar to the Price Bureau in Japan also deliberately tweeted in Chinese on its official Twitter, buying, hoarding, reselling Masks are illegal and will be resolutely banned. Although there were news of Japanese reselling masks to Chinese tourists at high prices, as soon as this statement came out, the pot of reselling masks was completely dumped on the Chinese. The irony of

is that at that time, there was a voice of gratitude to Japan on China's Weibo, and a large number of Japanese business mask areas cheered for China. They also said that masks were being discounted to help China. The actual situation is very likely that the Japanese felt that Japan would not be at risk of infection at the beginning, and the demand for masks would not be large, and Japanese businesses would also like to sell more masks to make money. After a large number of export masks were sold, Japanese media speculated that the Chinese made it impossible for the Japanese to buy masks. What are Chinese domestic media doing at this time? In a crazy report on the support and love of Japanese drugstores for China, the screen is full of "Mountains and rivers are different, and the wind and the moon are in the same sky".

After China resumed work and production, it gave Japan a large amount of free aid to masks. However, it was not all thanks to it. It was more sarcasm, saying that this was "rapist giving condom to victim" and "arsonist pretending to be firefighter". Said that "Chinese masks are poisonous. Never use them. There is a possibility of cancer."

A Japanese friend followed by the authorYou’s Twitter during the epidemic: “When China is fighting the new crown, I don’t know why the Japanese media and the Japanese want to insult and degrade China. Obviously, foreign media are not insulting and degrading but reporting. When cheering on China Some unproven derogatory and critical reports, as well as some Japanese cultural people and some guys who don’t know what title they wear, have been demeaning and insulting. It’s really a “noble and excellent” country.” After

aided the mask incident, Japan The media still didn't stop. In view of the increasing severity of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in Japan, the Chinese Embassy in Japan reminded the Chinese and overseas Chinese in Japan to pay attention to safety when going out. Some Japanese media forcibly distorted the relevant notice into China calling the virus "Japanese pneumonia", saying that we want to dump Japan. The famous performance artist Takeshi Shimura passed away due to the new crown, and the Japanese Internet set off another hate speech against the Chinese, saying that the Chinese killed him. Z1z

ubiquitous slander information The reports during the

epidemic are only the tip of the iceberg for Japanese media to smear China. In other fields, anti-intellectual news often appears. For example, during the rainy season, Japanese media hyped up the "deformation" of the Three Gorges Dam, saying that the collapse of the Three Gorges Dam would affect Japan; recently it has begun to declare that my country deliberately sends poisonous seeds to Japan and wants to poison their country's land...

I dare say that there is no problem with the Chinese community in Japan. After all, there are people of high moral character and depraved morals everywhere, but Japanese media are always searching for negative news about China in the corners of the world. The reported behavior is really too much.

Incidentally, China and Chinese are not the only countries or groups that have suffered this treatment. You may be able to guess the rest—yes, there are South Korea and North Korea (Korea and North Korean groups in Japan). The Three Kingdoms was given a ridiculous and ironic title on the Japanese Internet: "Special Asia", the full name is "Specific Asia", that is, "Specific Asia", or "Special Asia" for short. Negative news from China, North Korea and South Korea often dominates the homepage of online news media, and the negative heat remains high all year round. It can only be said that if I am also a member of Japan who lives in Japan and has been influenced by Japanese media for many years, maybe I will have a negative impression of China.

The other side of the real

The above is a microcosm of the overall impression of China in Japanese society and the trend of public opinion, but what about the actual communication between people in daily life? The author would like to share with you some of the most impressive reactions from Japanese people who have come into contact with me after knowing that I am Chinese.

"Z Sang, I started to learn Chinese because I like Lu Han, Huang Renjun and Wang Junkai."

"China used to be a Japanese teacher!"

"Hey? Are you Chinese? The appearance looks like us Japanese , It doesn’t make a difference."

"It would be great if it could be a bridge between China and Japan."

"Do you also play "Operation Wilderness"?"

"China's IT is very strong. There are apps like TikTok that are popular all over the world. , As well as the universal mobile payment throughout the country. It’s amazing!" These friendly words are also the real side of Japan that I have come into contact with on the personal level of

. Some people might think that this was just a polite remark from the first meeting, but in the later study and work, the help and concern given to me by my Japanese friends was also real.

"Sino-Japanese friendship" awaits Chinese culture "sparkling fire"

Generally speaking, before coming to Japan to study, the author is looking forward to the friendship between China and Japan, for no other reason, because I like Japanese culture and want to experience the life of studying in Japan. After I came here, the author became more sensitive to the term "China-Japan friendship" and did not want to mention it lightly. It is not that the author does not expect Sino-Japanese friendship, but the reality is always like a heavy hammer, shattering good expectations. Information is asymmetry, and the public opinion field is full of misunderstandings and prejudices, either exaggerating or degrading. Under this circumstance, mutual understanding is difficult to achieve, so how can we talk about friendship? The reason for

is, as I mentioned above, the young people’s attitude towards China and South Korea, the formation of misunderstandings and prejudice, of course, on the one hand, it is due to the discredit of Japanese media and the existence of readers who are willing to read articles critical of China and South Korea. Reports slander, readers love to read, and reports continue to slander. This vicious circle is uncontrollable for China. On the other hand, compared with South Korea, our own cultural output to Japan is still relatively weak, and the positive image of output is not enough. To neutralize negative impressions.

Just as the strength of the United States was accepted and recognized back then, it was not only the US military and Wall Street, but also Hollywood, Disney, Blizzard, and KFC. While improving our hard power, we also need to develop soft power. We need games, movies, and short videos. Popular cultures such as APP and idol stars have continued to rise strongly internationally. At that time, it may no longer be necessary to emphasize friendship, and people will naturally want to be close.

Fortunately, things are quietly changing. If you turn on the mobile phones of Japanese young people to see the apps they use, there are generally TikTok and NetEase games "Wild Action". These two applications can be said to be played by almost everyone among Japanese young people. Therefore, I am still looking forward to the influence of our country on Japan's soft power in the future. The spark of

has already appeared, and the power of starting a prairie fire can be expected in the future.

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