TOKYO, January 19. /TASS/. At least 51.8% of Japanese people consider the expansion of relations with the Russian Federation important for both Russia and Japan and for the Asia-Pacific region as a whole, the results of an annual public opinion poll conducted by the Japanese government show.

Compared to last year, this figure has decreased by about 6 percentage points. The number of respondents who do not deem the expansion of the Tokyo-Moscow relationship important has risen from 37.9% to 44%. Meanwhile, only 2.4% of Japanese positively assess the current relations between Tokyo and Moscow, a record low in recent years. In 2020-2021, this figure was above 20%, but in 2022 it fell to 3.1% amid the escalation in Ukraine.

The number of Japanese people who consider Sino-Japanese relations good has also decreased over the year from 11% to 5.6%, while 88% and 46% of Japanese surveyed have a positive assessment of their country’s relations with the United States and South Korea, respectively.

The Japanese government conducts annual surveys to measure the attitudes of citizens towards other countries and determine whether the Japanese people are aware of what is happening in foreign policy. The current study was conducted from September to October last year via mail among residents over the age of 18. In total, the researchers received about 1,600 responses that were included in the final report.

After Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine, Japan imposed several packages of anti-Russian sanctions. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow was ending negotiations with Tokyo on concluding a peace agreement, which was never signed after the end of World War II between Japan and the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s predecessor state.