日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

Japanese Perspectives on “Asia”:
Analyses of JGSS-2006
Shunsuke TANABE
Institute of Social Science
The University of Tokyo
日本人の「アジア観」−JGSS-2006 国別好感度データの分析から−
田辺 俊介
東京大学社会科学研究所

This paper exploratively examines Japanese “perspectives on Asia". Theoretical
implications of "perspectives on Asia" in Japan have been inconsistent. However, there
has have been little few studies on ordinary Japanese people’s "perspectives on Asia."Thus, the main purpose of this study is to analyze "perspectives on Asia" held by ageneral Japanese population based on JGSS-2006. The results show that mean score offavorable impression of North Korea is particularly low and it is followed by China. The
standard deviations of favorable impression scores of China and South Korea are large,
which represents that there are discrepancies in people's opinions. For other Asian
countries, such as Taiwan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and India,
more than 50% of respondents selected "0", suggesting that a majority of Japanese areunconcerned with these countries. In addition to analyses of cognitive structure,favorable impression scores of these Asian countries are strongly correlated with eachother very strongly, whereas correlations between South Korea, China, and North Korea
and the other Asian nations are relatively low.
Key Words: perspectives on Asia, favorable impression, cognitive structure
本論文は「日本人」の抱く「アジア観」の探索的把握を試みるものである。日本における「アジア観」は理論的には様々に語られてきた。しかし、一般の人々の抱く「アジア観」
についてはほとんど明らかになっていない。JGSS-2006 データを分析した結果、まず好感度データの平均値や分布としては、北朝鮮が特に嫌われ、続いて中国への好感度も低い
ことが示された。また中国・韓国は標準偏差が大きく、人々の間での意見の相違が示された。一方他のアジア諸国は、好きでも嫌いでもない「０」との回答が過半数以上を占め、多くの人は「無関心」であった。さらに認知構造の分析を行った結果、中国・韓国・北朝
鮮はかなり独自の存在である一方、他のアジア諸国（台湾・モンゴル・フィリピン・イン
ドネシア・タイ・インド）への好感度の相関は非常に高く、日本人の多くがそれら諸国を文化的・地理的近接性等では弁別せず、ひとまとまりに見なしていることが示された。
キーワード：アジア観，好感度，認知構造13日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

1. Introduction
As China exceeded the U.S. in the total amount of trading in 2007 (JETRO 2008), economic
connections between Japan and Asian nations have steadily grown. Cultural connections between
Japan and Asian nations have also intensified. Not only did subcultures from Asian countries become
popular in Japan just like “Han-ryu (Korean boom)”, but also Japanese pop culture, such asanimations and video games, became prevalent in Asian countries. In relation to the emergence ofsuch economic and cultural interactions among the East Asian countries, there have been increasing
discussions regarding building of an "East Asian Community" composed of Japan, China, South Korea
and ASEAN(1) nations (see Shindo 2007 for details). However, one of the most difficult issues is tobuild “a sense of community” among East Asian nations (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2004).
In fact, hostility and mistrust, rather than a sense of community, have stood out in recent East
Asia. Anti-Japan movement in China and South Korea, and abduction and nuclear related issues ofNorth Korea are examples of continual problems existing among the East Asian countries. Against
these issues, these three countries are named “Tokutei Asia(2) (specific-Asia)” on the Internet bulletinboard systems. Some people possess excessively negative images toward these three countries andoften distinguish them from other Asian countries.
In this study, I will examine perspectives on Asia in Japan by analyzing a survey data.
Specifically, I will delineate Japanese general views on Asia based on an item asking prepossession foreach foreign country in the self-administered questionnaire in JGSS-2006. I will also investigate
differences in perspectives on Asia among Japanese people.

2. Reviews of previous works
2.1 Intellectuals' “Perspectives on Asia”
In “Datsu-A Ron (advocacy of Leaving Asia)” published in 1885, Fukuzawa argued that Japan
should “leave Asia” as Asian countries were stagnant and barbarous, compared to civilized westerncountries. Since the phrase "Leaving Asia" had a strong impact, it has been often picked up as asymbolic word of contempt for Asian nations. However, it has been believed that Fukuzawa wrote
the article when he was deeply disappointed with a failure of Gapsin Coup by pro-modernizationgroups he supported. Also he was moaning about the situations of the Qing Dynasty (China) and theYi Dynasty (Korea), such as the defeat of the Qing Dynasty in Sino-French War (Okamoto 1998,
Suzuki 1997, etc.). Considering these backgrounds, his argument was not simply “contempt for
Asian nations” nor “advocacy for Japanese invasion of Asian nations”. In his article “Datsu-A Ron”,
Fukuzawa focused only on neighboring countries, the Qing Dynasty and the Yi Dynasty (Sakamoto
2001), and thus, it was not an argument including other Asian countries like India. Nevertheless, his
ideas partially lead to “contempt (or ignorance) for (all) Asian nations” that was symbolized by awidely spread slogan “Datsu-A Nyu-Ouo (Leaving Asia, Entering West)”.
On the contrary, Tenshin Okakura advocated, "Asia is one" by including India and other Asian
countries, as well as China and Korea (Okakura 1903), around the same time when "“Datsu-A Ron"
was argued. Tenshin stated from artistic and aesthetic point of view that there are somecommonalities in "Asia" derived from Chinese civilization and Indian civilization, and Japan who
assimilated them. His statement aimed against Western imperialism. Thus, it is ironic that Tenshin
was treated as the founder of later "Pan-Asianism" and his phrase was misappropriated to the slogan of"Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" which was the Japanese version of imperialism. In
contrast to Tenshin’s assertion, “Pan-Asianism” during the WW2 was developed with a strong notionof Japan’s superiority over other Asian countries. Similar to Tenshin's contention, however, "Asia" at

14日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

that time was probably extensive and it should encompass India and Islamic nations. That can befound that Shumei Ookawa, a representative theorist of Pan-Asianism during the WW2, supported R.
B. Bose, an activist for Indian independence, and his pioneering study on Islam (e.g., translation of the
Qur'an).
After the dream of “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” collapsed due to the loss of the War,Japan seemed to return to the “Datsu-A Nyu-Ouo (Leaving Asia and Entering West)”, especially by
being subordinate to the U.S. It is not too exaggerated to say that Japanese “forgot” Asia during theCold War when Japan took a strategy as “diplomatic subservience to the U.S.”. As one of theconsequences, Keitaro Hasegawa, an economist, published “Sayonara Asia (Good-bye Asia)” andclaimed an escape out of Asia from an economic point of view during the Japanese bubble economy.
This can be counted as a sort of the “Leaving Asia” advocacy.
On the other hand, Yoshimi Takeuchi (1963) published “Nihon no Asia Shugi (Japanese
Pan-Asianism)”, and proposed the necessity of new solidarity with Asian countries based on regret
over prewar Pan-Asianism. However, the idea of “solidarity with Asian nations”, a sort of
Pan-Asianism he advocated, changed its shape and downgraded its original implications. Propagateddescriptions of Japan at the Summit conferences, such as “Japan as a representative of Asia” and“Japan as a spokesperson of Asia” (Toh 2003), and an assertion of “Leaving West, Entering Asia”,
which was developed with Asian nations' economic growth, those are examples of distorted Takeuchi's
ideas. In fact, general images of Asia have been changed from negative such as “stagnant”,“poverty” and “autocracy”, to positive such as “developed”, “prosperity” and “democracy” as the
structure of the Cold War collapsed and Asian countries have developed economically (Matsumoto2000).
As stated above, many theorists and intellectuals have discussed meanings of “Asia”. Among
various discussions on the matter, the following two subjects have been most controversial: what
“Asia” symbolizes and which nations are encompassed in “Asia”. In this article, my main focus is tocompare those intellectuals’ perspectives on “Asia” with ordinary peoples’ perspectives on “Asia” byanalyzing the social survey data and to examine the differences.
2.2 Public Images of Asia: Previous Experimental Studies
The history of studies about favorable impressions of foreign countries and foreign people isrelatively long. For example, Kusunoki (1941) conducted a study by asking students prior to theWorld War II. The results showed that German and Italian were rated high in popularity because of
the Triple Alliance. Japanese colonized countries, such as Manchurian, Korean, and Mongolian was
followed. Reflecting historical circumstances, the results also showed that American and British
were rated low in popularity. However in 1949, after the War, a similar study (Kusunoki 1949)
revealed that Korean was the last place in popularity. Whereas Americans, who was the eighth place inthe previous study, were the second. In general, Western countries got higher ranks than the results of
his previous study, while Asian countries' ranking declined.
This trend of “high in West and low in East” in favorable impressions, which appeared during thepostwar era, has been continuously replicated (Wagatsuma and Yoneyama 1967; Hori 1977; Tanabe
2004, 2008). The results from annual “Public Opinion Survey on Diplomacy” (Naikakufu 2006) also
revealed similar patterns.
Since the postwar era, most studies reported that the trend of favorable impressions of foreigncountries have been “high in West and low in East”. Kozakai (1996) concluded that the Japanese
recognize various nationalities in the world based on “(simple) economic developmental stage theory”,

15日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

assuming Western countries as the top of the hierarchy by integrating both quantitative and qualitative
data.
There have been relatively a large number of studies regarding favorable impressions or imagesof South Korea, China, and North Korea, each of which has a strong relationship with Japan. For
instance, the degree of favorable impressions of China declined due to the Tiananmen Square Incident(Manabe 1993), the degree of favorable impressions of China has also been reported to be on decreasesince 2000's (Ito & Zhu 2008). Kono (2008) argued that one of the reasons for the decline is thefrequency of mass media contacts. For impressions of South Korea, there is a study (Tei 1995) thatelaborately described Japanese views on South Korea in postwar era. Recent study have indicatedthat impressions of South Korea became more favorable because of the World Cup Soccer jointly
hosted by Japan and Korea and Korean culture boom in Japan (Terasima 2007). In contrast, the news
on North Korean abduction issues has been largely reported (Lee 2007), and most reports (e.g., nuclear
development issues) about North Korea are negative. Perhaps because of such negative reports, theresults from various public surveys indicated that North Korea is an unusually "disliked country" inJapan (Asahi Newspaper April 27th 2005).
These studies discussed public images of “the world” (not necessarily Asian countries) or
favorable impressions and images of individual Asian countries. However, there have been few
studies that analyzed differences and variations in Japanese perspectives on Asian countries. Thus,
this study will strive to illustrated perspectives on Asia held by a general Japanese population, rather
than by scholars, using JGSS data.

3. Data and Analysis
3.1 Data
Data used in the following analyses is an item asking “prepossession for each foreign country(3)”in the self-administered questionnaire “Form A” of JGSS-2006. The total sample size is 2,124 with the
response rate of 59.8%. The question is as follows:
How do you feel about the following countries and regions? For each country and region,please choose one of the numbers. If you don't have any specific feeling to a country or region, choose“0”.
First, this question assesses prepossession by asking Inshou (impression) in Japanese
questionnaire, and it does not directly ask “likes” or “dislikes”. That is different form the wordingused in JGSS-1999 first pilot and Tanabe (2008), “How much favorable impression do you have on thefollowing countries?” Therefore, caution must be exercised when the results from these previous
studies are compared with the current ones.
Second, the question is rated on a 7-point scale (+3 … +2 … +1 … 0 … -1 … -2 … -3), and anote “more favorable” is written above +3, and “less favorable” is written above -3. For “0”,however, an annotation, “If you don't have any specific feeling to a country or region, choose '0'.” isgiven. Therefore, it is possible that people chose “0” because of “no impression≒no idea”, rather
than because of “neither like nor dislike”.
3.2 Analysis 1
3.2.1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Frequency Distributions of Prepossession for Each Country
Table 1 shows means, standard deviations, and frequency distributions of prepossession for each
foreign country.

16日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

Table 1 Means, Standard deviations, Frequency Distributions of each foreign country
Mean
S.D.
-3
-2
-1
-(Sum)
0＋(Sum)
1
2
3
D.K.&N.A.

S. Korea N. Korea China
0.14
-2.31
-0.39
1.41
1.20
1.45
6.5
68.9
11.6
5.1
8.1
10.1
10.6
4.4
15.6
22.3
81.4
37.2
42.3
15.2
38.1
32.7
0.9
21.8
16.2
0.4
13.3
11.8
0.2
6.2
4.7
0.3
2.4
2.7
2.5
2.8

Mongolia Taiwan Philippines
0.30
0.43
0.03
1.05
1.10
1.06
2.8
2.5
3.6
1.5
1.3
3.9
2.6
3.1
9.0
6.9
6.8
16.5
62.4
55.7
59.5
27.6
34.5
21.2
15.9
17.9
13.7
7.9
12.5
5.6
3.8
4.1
1.8
3.2
2.9
2.8

Thai
0.25
1.02
2.4
1.9
4.9
9.2
61.7
26.2
15.3
8.2
2.7
2.9

Indonesia
0.20
0.96
2.5
1.6
4.0
8.2
66.1
22.8
13.8
6.8
2.2
2.9

India
0.21
1.01
2.6
2.0
4.7
9.2
63.5
24.3
14.7
6.9
2.7
3.0

Russia
-0.33
1.18
7.6
7.3
14.7
29.6
53.0
14.5
9.7
3.7
1.0
3.0

U.S.A.
0.67
1.33
3.0
2.4
5.8
11.2
37.4
48.8
21.0
19.6
8.1
2.6

First, the percentages of no answer were relatively low and approximately 3% for all countries.
However, over 60% answered “0” for Indonesia (66.1%), India (63.5%), Mongolia (62.4%), andThailand (61.7%), and about 60% answered “0” for Philippines (59.5%), and more than half peopleanswered “0” for Taiwan (55.7%) and Russia (53.0%). That is, the majority of people "neither likenor dislike" these countries, or “have no impression” on these countries. In addition, the standard
deviations for Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Thailand, and Philippines were 1.0 or thereabout and small.
Thus, perceptions about these countries are relatively homogeneous among Japanese people.
Second, means of prepossession were compared. The mean score of favorable prepossession for
North Korea was remarkably low (-2.31). Considering the nuclear development scandal andabduction issues, the result was fairly conceivable. Nevertheless, it was quite peculiar that over two
thirds selected “-3”, representing the least favorable. It is important to note that North Korea's score,
which is almost an "outlier", may have affected prepossessions for other countries. Because many
people have an extreme feeling about North Korea, it might have had carryover effects on their
judgments on their feelings for other countries. In other words, scores for the following countries
listed after North Korea (especially for China because it was right after North Korea) might have been
higher than it should be because people might have thought, "It is better than North Korea".
Even if there were the carryover effects, the mean score for China was negative (-0.39),
indicating that prepossession for China is unfavorable in Japan. The mean score for Russia was also
negative (-0.33), indicating that Russia is relatively disliked by Japanese people. However, morethan 50% of the answers for Russia were “0”, and the standard deviation was 1.18 and was not verylarge. On the other hand, less than 40% of the answers for China were “0”, and the standard
deviation was 1.45 and large. Thus, we can roughly divide Japanese people into two groups: “People
who like China” and “people who dislike China”.
The U.S. was rated the most favorable by Japanese people. Possibly because over one-third
selected “0”, the mean score was not so large (+0.67). Given the relatively large standard deviation(1.33), people have strong likes and dislikes for the U.S., which is equivalent to China. Similarly, thestandard deviation for South Korea was also large (1.41), indicating that the Japanese people havediverse opinions about South Korea, just like about China and the U.S.
3.2.2 “0” = “no impression + neither like nor dislike” ≒ “unconcerned + no idea”

I examined the tendencies of “0” as an answer, which was the most frequently selected answer for
most countries. As mentioned above, the answer “0” confounds “no impression” with “neither likenor dislike”. Given the results that people who have lower education and are elderly people tended to17

日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

answer “no idea” (Tanabe 2004), I analyzed relations between the answer “0” for each country and age
group and educational background(4). The results are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Ratio of “0” by age group and educational background (%)
20-29

S. Korea N. Korea
34.3
8.1

China
36.4

Mongolia Taiwan Philippines
65.7
60.0
58.1

Thai
61.0

Indonesia
65.7

India
60.5

Russia56.2

U.S.A.
31.9

30-39

36.9

8.2

32.5

64.5

56.9

59.6

60.1

64.8

66.1

58.9

39.0

40-49

37.1

10.0

38.1

60.8

56.3

58.4

60.3

63.4

59.4

48.2

36.1

50-59

44.1

13.3

36.9

66.1

53.8

58.9

64.1

69.0

64.4

51.8

37.0

60-69

50.3

21.9

45.3

63.8

59.7

63.2

66.3

71.1

69.3

57.3

38.4

70-

53.1

28.6

45.0

65.2

59.4

67.9

67.7

72.8

69.9

55.1

45.2

Elementary

55.8

26.6

49.2

66.3

63.9

67.5

70.6

73.3

72.2

60.0

51.1

Secondary

43.5

15.2

38.9

65.0

59.2

61.7

65.3

69.1

66.4

54.5

36.5

Postseconday

41.6

14.7

39.8

66.4

56.8

63.3

65.2

67.7

66.5

60.9

39.3

Higher

33.3

7.0

30.5

59.7

47.6

53.3

52.2

61.5

56.5

46.0

31.0

Total

43.3

15.5

39.1

64.3

57.2

61.2

63.4

68.1

65.4

54.5

38.3

Regarding age effects, individuals who are over sixty were more likely to answer “0”. For
academic backgrounds, individuals with low educational background were more likely to answer “0”.
Table 3 shows percentages of people who answered "0" for all countries, for all countries except North
Korea, and for six Asian countries (Mongolia, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, and India) by age groupand educational level.
Table 3 Ratio of answer “0” for all countries, all except North Korea, and for six Asian nations
by age group and educational background

All 0
Elementary
SecondaryPostseconday
Higher

Total
N

22.6
10.5
9.5
4.3
11.1
224

0(except 0 for 6
N.K.)
nations
32.6
51.5
17.6
39.3
15.6
36.7
10.2
26.8
18.4
38.5
370
780

All 0
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70Total
Ｎ

5.3
6.0
7.2
9.8
16.4
20.8
11.3
229

0(except 0 for 6
N.K.)
nations
12.9
36.7
12.8
33.7
15.4
34.3
16.3
36.0
23.8
42.5
28.2
48.4
18.6
38.7
376
789

It is clear that the tendency of answer “0” is related to academic background and age. Whereas
more than 20 percent of individuals who only have primary education answered “0” for all countries,
only 4.3% of individuals who completed higher education answered “0”. Such patterns wereconfirmed from 3-way cross-tabulation (due to limitations of space, I don’t show the table). The
results showed that both academic background and age cohort affected the probability to select “0”.
Some interaction effects were partially found, such that the percentage of the answer “0” was low
among elder people who completed higher education.
In summary, the answer “0” in this data probably contains “no idea”, as well as “unconcerned”
that include having no impression and neither like nor dislike.

18

日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

3.3 Analysis 2: The Relations between Prepossession for Asian Countries and Attributes
The relations between prepossession for Asian countries and basic attributions, such as age, sex,
and academic background were examined and shown in Table 4.
Table 4 Mean Scores and correlation ratio by gender, age group and educational level
S. Korea N. Korea
0.04
-2.31
0.23
-2.32
.004
.000
η2
20-29
0.22
-2.51
30-39
0.23
-2.49
40-49
0.37
-2.48
50-59
0.11
-2.37
60-69
0.08
-2.16
70-0.13
-1.97
.012
.028
η2
Elementary
-0.11
-2.02
Secondary
0.17
-2.33
Vocational
0.30
-2.37
Higher
0.15
-2.50
.007
.016
η2
Men
Women

China
-0.43
-0.35
.001
-0.41
-0.60
-0.27
-0.49
-0.27
-0.26
.008
-0.34
-0.39
-0.29
-0.48
.002

Mongolia Taiwan Philippines
0.39
0.56
0.17
0.22
0.32
-0.11
.006
.011
.018
0.42
0.51
0.04
0.36
0.46
-0.05
0.46
0.49
0.12
0.27
0.47
0.06
0.24
0.43
0.05
0.13
0.28
-0.03
.011
.005
.003
0.08
0.21
-0.07
0.31
0.39
0.01
0.36
0.56
0.03
0.44
0.66
0.14
.012
.019
.004

Thai
0.36
0.14
.012
0.37
0.29
0.34
0.20
0.29
0.08
.009
0.02
0.23
0.30
0.45
.018

Indonesia India
0.27
0.26
0.13
0.16
.006
.003
0.29
0.34
0.28
0.31
0.27
0.32
0.16
0.15
0.22
0.20
-0.01
0.01
.011
.013
-0.03
-0.04
0.20
0.22
0.29
0.27
0.32
0.36
.014
.016

Russia
-0.40
-0.26
.003
-0.11
-0.18
-0.26
-0.39
-0.38
-0.54
.014
-0.49
-0.29
-0.19
-0.37
.006

U.S.A.
0.72
0.62
.002
0.66
0.58
0.69
0.71
0.77
0.58
.003
0.45
0.73
0.78
0.63
.007

Because the sample size was large, mean differences by sex, age cohort, and academic
background were statistically significant for most countries. However, the highest correlation ratio
for sex was Philippines' .018, for academic background was Taiwan's .019, and for age cohort was
North Korea’s .028. Thus all of their correlations were weak. Considering effects of small variances
due to high percentages of the answer “0”, cases with the answer “0” were excluded and reanalyzed
associations. Even so, the magnitude of each correlation was not strong, although the correlation
ratios became larger than before, such that the highest correlation ratio for sex was Philippines' .044,
for academic background was Indonesia's .037, and for age cohort was Russia's .033.
In order to examine each association as continuous variables, age groups were recoded to real
numbers and educational levels were recoded to schooling years. As stated above, because theanswer "0" might have included multiple meanings, analyses with and without “0” were performed.
In general, elder individuals had negative prepossession toward each country and individuals withlonger education had positive prepossession toward each country. But again, the magnitude of these
correlations was not strong.
Taken together, differences in prepossessions for foreign countries between sex, age cohort, andacademic background were small. Some findings were that males were more likely than females tohold favorable prepossession for Philippines and some other countries. Elder generations were more
likely than younger generations to hold unfavorable prepossession for Mongolia, Taiwan, Thailand,
and Indonesia. Similarly, individuals with lower educational background were more likely to holdunfavorable prepossession for those countries. In cases of countries with which Japan have relatively
weak connections, individuals with lower educational background tended to answer "0" and that madethe mean scores low. Even after cases with the answer "0" were excluded, individuals who have only
primary education and who are over seventy years old were less likely to have favorable prepossession.
On the other hand, individuals who attained higher education were more likely to have favorable
prepossession for each country. These results can be explained as “mere exposure effect” (Zajonc
1968). Mere exposure effect presumes that individuals tend to have positive impression by being
exposed to some stimuli and information of the object.
In the case of this study, individuals with higher education may have more chance to get

19日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

information about foreign countries. As a result of the mere exposure effect, those individuals may
have more favorable prepossession for foreign countries.
Nonetheless, the mere exposure effect did not exert on individuals' prepossession for China andSouth Korea. Particularly for China, individuals with higher education had rather lower scores of
prepossession, which is the opposite from prediction. In a study (Hagiwara 2006) that gathered thecontents of TV night news about foreign countries from November 2003 to August 2004, which is
close to the data collection period of this study, the author found that there were more "reports
implying the deteriorating relationship between Japan and China", such as the anti-Japan movement at
the Asia Cup Soccer (Hagiwara 2006:51). In this case, in contrast to the mere exposure effect, more
exposure to the TV news may have led individuals with higher education to hold unfavorable
impression against China because the contents of the TV news were negative(5).
3.4 Analysis 3: Structural Analysis of Prepossession for Asian Countries
In the previous section, one-dimensional order was examined by comparing mean scores. To
analyze structural characteristics of associations between variables, a correlation matrix of
prepossession for each Asian country was examined in Table 5.
Table 5 Correlation matrix of favorable prepossession
S. Korea N. Korea
0.102
0.606
0.243
0.372 -0.002
0.385 -0.035
Philippines 0.331
0.092
Thai
0.328
0.007
Indonesia 0.329
0.020
India
0.301
0.005
Russia 0.393
0.217
U.S.A.
0.326 -0.119
N. Korea
China
Mongolia
TaiwanChina

Mongolia Taiwan Philippines

Thai

Indonesia

India

Russia

0.356
0.349
0.320
0.303
0.306
0.319
0.442
0.264

0.633
0.514
0.577
0.584
0.573
0.319
0.311

0.804
0.699
0.331
0.329

0.761
0.400
0.326

0.416
0.365

0.307

0.588
0.658
0.616
0.567
0.273
0.374

0.724
0.658
0.603
0.338
0.308

In general, intercorrelations were strong. Particularly, the coefficients of correlations among
Mongolia, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and India were over 0.5, and the highest one was
0.8. The correlation between China and South Korea was 0.606 and relatively high. Meanwhile,the correlations between China and Taiwan and between China and Mongolia were not so high (0.349
and 0.356, respectively), although these countries seem culturally close. Rather, China had a higher
correlation with Russia (0.442) possibly because the images that they were communist regimes arestill lingering on. When cases with the answer “0” were excluded (table not shown), coefficients ofcorrelation became stronger. Especially among six Asian countries were at least 0.681 between
Mongolia and Philippines, and at most 0.909 between Thailand and Indonesia.
In order to analyze how individuals classify Asian countries, hierarchical cluster analyses were
performed based on similarities among prepossession for each country. The result is shown in Figure1.

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日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

Figure 1 Result of hierarchical clustering(Using Euclidean distance and Ward method)Thailand, Indonesia, and India formed a cluster at the relatively early stage, and then Philippines,
Mongolia, and Taiwan were clustered together with the group. However, South Korea and China
joined the cluster later than the U.S., and North Korea was obviously an outlier. Thus, anotherhierarchical cluster analysis was performed without North Korea. The result is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Result of hierarchical clustering (except North Korea)

General patterns did not change. Thailand, Indonesia, and India became a cluster first andPhilippines, Mongolia, and Taiwan followed. South Korea and China joined the cluster later than
U.S.A. Thus, China and South Korea are distinctive from other Asian nations in terms of
prepossession.
It is important to note the results of Taiwan and Mongolia. From cultural point of view, Taiwan isclose to China. Mongolia is also a neighboring country of China. However, the results from thecluster analyses revealed that these two countries are closer to other Asian countries than China,
suggesting that the Japanese consider Taiwan and Mongolia as one of the countries in Asia or one offoreign countries due to little interest in these countries. On the contrary, the Japanese place a special
attention to China, South Korea, and also North Korea. Parallel to the term “Tokutei Asia
(specific-Asia)” on the Internet bulletin board systems, the majority of Japanese may regard thesethree countries as different from other Asian countries.
The current results also illustrated that individuals do not consider cultural or geographical21日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

proximity when they evaluate other countries. Tanabe (2008) suggested from structural analyses that
the Japanese prepossession for foreign countries can be explained by whether “Western capitalist
country or not” and by “(negative images of) media reports”. Limited to Asian countries, the present
study was consistent with this suggestion, given the present results that culture and geography did notaffect the cognitive structure of prepossession.

4. Conclusions and Discussion
A summary of Japanese perspectives on Asia from the present study is the following four points.
1 North Korea is a particularly disliked nation. 2 Many respondents recognize Philippines, Mongolia,
Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and India as similar countries, and moreover, most Japanese areunconcerned with these countries. Such patterns can be seen especially among individuals who are
old and who have low educational background. On the contrary, individuals with high educational
background tend to hold favorable prepossession for these countries possibly because of "mereexposure effect". 3 There are no consistent Japanese perspectives on China and Korea.
Respondents can be divided into a group who like these two countries and a group who dislike them,perhaps because a flood of information about China and South Korea diminishes the mere exposure
effect. 4 The structural characteristics of prepossession scores are very similar among six Asian
countries: Taiwan, Mongolia, Philippines, Thailand, and India. On the contrary, the correlations
between the six Asian countries and South Korea, China, and North Korea are relatively weak.
Especially the results of low correlations between China and Taiwan and between China and Mongolia
imply that individuals do not take cultural and geographical proximity into account when they evaluate
foreign countries.
As I mentioned in the introduction, the “East Asian Community” has been discussed actively.
Even in the existing case, the European Union (EU) has multiple obstacles. For example, there is an
issue about the definition of “Europe”, and the propriety of Turkey's affiliation with EU has beendisputed. Thus, it is not hard to imagine that the definition of “Asia” would be an issue when the“East Asian Community” is considered. The results of the present analyses revealed that the majorityof the Japanese do not distinguish Asian countries, except for China, South Korea, and North Korea.
Like Tenshin's assertion, in that sense, “Asia is one”. However, it is “one” because individuals wereunconcerned with Asian countries, and the Japanese lack a sense of community with them.
In addition, considering the prepossession against China and Korea, it does not seem that theJapanese are ready to form a “community” with them. In China's case, the mean score was negative.
While almost 40% of individuals held unfavorable prepossession against China, only 20% held
favorable prepossession for them. A variety of public opinion surveys and anti-Japan demo denotethat many Chinese people also have negative prepossession against “Japan”. In South Korea's case,although there were more individuals who held favorable than unfavorable prepossession, more than
20% were unfavorable. But, public opinion surveys in South Korea indicated that the many South
Korean regard Japan very unfavorably. China and South Korea are the closest neighboring countries
to Japan, and we have had quite a few exchanges. At this moment, however, public opinions do notallow to form “a friendly community” with them.
Recently, the importance of influencing competitors' public opinions and world opinions (i.e.,
public diplomacy) in international politics and diplomacy has been stressed. In our Internet andinformation age during which information in the world is instantly shared, world opinions have a large
impact on diplomatic policies, and sometimes public opinions can be a sole determinant of a policy(Inoue 2008). That is, the present day is the time in which perspectives on other countries strongly

22日本版 General Social Surveys 研究論文集[8] JGSS で見た日本人の意識と行動 JGSS Research Series No.5

affect diplomatic policies in each country. More than ever, therefore, Japanese “perspectives on
foreign countries” is going to be an important topic to study. “Perspectives on Asia”, the focus of thisstudy, will be an important foundation of knowledge, particularly when today's hot topic “East Asian
Community” is discussed.
[Acknowledgement]
The Japanese General Social Surveys (JGSS) are designed and carried out by the JGSS ResearchCenter at Osaka University of Commerce (Joint Usage / Research Center for Japanese General Social
Surveys accredited by Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), in
collaboration with the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo. The datasets are
distributed by SSJ Data Archive, Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo.
I would like to express my gratitude to Takayuki Sasaki who translated my first Japanese draft
into English, and also want to thank Satsuki Takahashi and Kikuko Nagayoshi who checked many
English phrases for later drafts. But I am fully responsible for mistakes and misunderstandings, ifany, in this paper.
[Footnotes](1) ASEAN stands for Association of South-East Asian Nations. Originally, it was an association for regional
cooperation formed by anti-communism countries.

The current members consist of 10 nations: Indonesia,

Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, and Cambodia.
(2) China, South Korea and North Korea, which stand out in news reports especially about anti-Japan movement,
have been recognized as peculiar nations and called “Tokutei (specific)”. However, beliefs that other Asian
nations are “non-anti Japan” or “pro-Japan” may be a result of biased news reports. For detailed information,
see Nagai (1998) and Toh (2003).
(3) It is a controversial issue whether to regard Taiwan as a “country” because of their political relations with
China. However, as you can see from the results of present analyses, the Japanese recognize “China” and“Taiwan” as “different” countries. In that sense, rather than using “region”, which applies only to Taiwan,“country” was consistently used in this paper.
(4) Regarding educational background, ordinary elementary school in the old system (including national
elementary school), higher elementary school in the old system, and junior high school in the new systemwere classified as “elementary”; junior high school/girls’ high school in the old system, normal school in theold system, high school in the new system were classified as “secondary”; higher school, vocational school,or higher normal school in the old system, high school or two-year college in the new system were classified
as “post-secondary”; and university or graduate school in both old and new system were classified as“higher”.
(5) Mere exposure effect would be active only when an individual is exposed to “neutral information”. Thus,
an individual’s prepossession would not be improved when he or she is exposed to a large amount ofnegative information.

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