世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently conducted a survey looking at diplomacy in Japan. This is a regular yearly survey, and last year I translated it in two parts, here and here.

Demographics

3,000 adult members of the Japanese public were selected at random from resident registries to be interviewed face-to-face between the 9th and 19th of October 2008. From the sample, 1,826 people, or 60.9%, were available and completed the survey. 54.1% of the sample were female, 10.0% were in their twenties, 15.9% in their thirties, 15.6% in their forties, 20.3% in their fifties, 21.9% in their sixties, and 16.3% aged seventy or older. Additionally, 4.6% had lived overseas for more than three months, another 57.3% had travelled overseas, and 38.1% had never been overseas.

The section on North Korea was conducted before the recent news that wouldn’t have surprised many westerns following the story, namely that North Korea finally had enough about Japan going on about the abductees and have said they’ll refuse to recognise Japan at the upcoming 6-party (or should that now be 5-party?) talks due to this issue, a stance that I must agree with, quite frankly. However, Q3 shows the abductees is still the most important issue for the Japanese, but I’d love to see a more detailed survey on why.
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[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently conducted a survey looking at diplomacy in Japan. This is a regular yearly survey, and last year I translated it in two parts, here and here.

Demographics

3,000 adult members of the Japanese public were selected at random from resident registries to be interviewed face-to-face between the 9th and 19th of October 2008. From the sample, 1,826 people, or 60.9%, were available and completed the survey. 54.1% of the sample were female, 10.0% were in their twenties, 15.9% in their thirties, 15.6% in their forties, 20.3% in their fifties, 21.9% in their sixties, and 16.3% aged seventy or older. Additionally, 4.6% had lived overseas for more than three months, another 57.3% had travelled overseas, and 38.1% had never been overseas.

If you have been reading Japan news you may have seen some coverage of this poll, although they only dipped into the first two questions below for the article. There’s a lot of good information in part 2 that has been almost completely ignored by the foreign media, so be sure to check that out too.
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If you have been following the Japanese blogs or news wires this week, you surely must have seen headlines like – well, I thought I saw headlines, but they now seem to have disappeared! Anyway, there was quite a bit of fuss about 53% of Japanese seeing public safety problems due to an increase in tourism, but what is the truth behind that headline? Read the full details from the survey by the Cabinet Office Japan into Tourism Nation Japan and the Japan Tourism Agency.

Demographics

3,000 adults from all over the country were randomly selected from resident registers, and they were visited for face-to-face interviews between the 16th and 26th of October 2008. 1,853 people, or 61.8%, were available and completed the questionnaire. A breakdown by age and sex was not presented, however.

Note that the questions below were part of a bigger survey on other unreported topics.

Q3 is the question that has sparked the controversy, with the negative answers being singled out. My personal opinion is that since the increase in tourism is mostly from Korea and China, countries with none-too-friendly a view of Japan, and the Chinese especially have a reputation for being ill-mannered, and they are the biggest foreign criminal element in Japan, I can see one reason why the figure is high. Of course, one has to contrast that with the equally large percentage who expect the increase in tourists to decrease such prejudice through mutual understanding.
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After the Second World War an undecided territorial issue between the USSR/Russia and Japan was the fate of the four most southern of the Northern Territories, as they are known in Japan, or the Kuril Isles to the Russians. This survey from the Cabinet Office Japan (so obviously there is an inherent bias towards the official government position) looked at what the Japanese think about the Northern Territories issue.

Demographics

3,000 members of the public aged 20 or over were randomly selected for face-to-face interviews between the 9th and 19th of October 2008. 1,826 people, or 60.9%, agreed to take part. Sex and age demographics were not given, but since Cabinet Office surveys are conducted face-to-face they tend to catch an older demographic.

As background on the issue, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a pamphlet describing the Japanese position, Gregory Clarke wrote an article on this for the Japan Times a few years ago, and Russia Today looked at the new Japanese curriculum that will start teaching that the isles are Japanese.
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Censorship is always a hot topic in discussions regarding the internet, with recent flare-ups surrounding such matters as the government trying to remove web sites promoting suicide by sulfide gas (although Bloomberg reported how to do it), so I was pleased to see the issue being tackled by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com in this survey on web censorship.

Research results

Between the 12th and 14th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I am certainly not for government-level censorship of either domestic or foreign web content, but I do support properly-executed legal orders for domestic sites to remove content, and of course self-regulation by service providers. The web should be neither a free-for-all or a free-for-none, but instead a healthy balance must be reached. In Q2, I think they must mean within Japan, as The Great Firewall of China is a fact.

For those curious about the Japanese language used in the original survey, I translated 検閲, ken-etsu, as censorship, and 規制, kisei, as regulation.
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Official online party political activity is banned in Japan during election periods due to legal restrictions that I am not quite sure about, but that doesn’t stop people feeling the internet has a big effect on outcomes. Given that this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on japan.internet.com was conducted just after the US elections, I wonder how much thinking of America instead of Japan affected the outcome of this look at searching for election information.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 10th of November 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I don’t know how Japanese discussion works on the internet, but I was again extremely disappointed at the US coverage on the various social news sites, as the arguments focus around why one shouldn’t vote for the other guy rather than actually dealing with the issues. I still have little idea what Mr Obama plans to do, and given the state of the world economy these days, and given that I don’t believe he will keep all his promises, and given the size of the USA, I feel he cannot do much more than tinker at the controls for his first term.
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A little bit of politics for you today, as iShare decided to look at awareness of the American presidential election, in particular its effect on Japan.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of November 2008 501 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 12.6% in their twenties, 48.3% in their thirties, 28.5% in their forties, and 10.6% in their teens or fifty or older. The sample seems to be drawn from a more technology-aware crowd than the average internet user, thus the geeks in the headline.

Just in case you are wondering who (or what) the Nocchi in the headline is, he is Nozomu Sato, a Japanese comedian who looks like Mr Obama, and in fact met him for a brief instant. I predict great things for Nocchi, as if I’ve learnt one thing about the entertainment industry in Japan, one sure way to get ahead is to be a one-trick pony, then milk it for all you’re worth!
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With the recent news about a ring tunes site being busted for offering illegal downloads, a site that apparently almost all middle and high-school children know, this survey from the Cabinet Office Japan looking into intellectual property is well-timed. Suspiciously well-timed.

Demographics

3,000 members of the public were randomly selected from resident registers, and face-to-face interviews took place between the 11th and 21st of September 2008. 1,770 people, or 59.0%, were available and agreed to be interviewed. The demographic information has not been made public yet, but as these Cabinet Office surveys are usually face-to-face interviews they tend to catch an older demographic, as can be seen in Q4 where over half the sample never or almost never access the internet.

This is quite a relevant survey in other ways too as I read just today an article on Global Voices Online about new copyright protection laws being proposed in Japan, where I read much to my surprise that it is not actually illegal to download copyright-infringing material, even if one is aware that the contents are not correctly licensed!

There is also no attempt to differentiate between legal and illegal free contents, just anything privately shared must be bad.
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With five candidates standing for leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, it should be quite a battle for…what am I saying, Taro Aso is a shoo-in. As to what policies he might enact, goo Ranking asked members of the goo Research monitor group what matters of policy they would like to see realised.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I must say they are mostly reasonably sensible, but also very inward-looking. I’m surprised there wasn’t anything about North Korea, however, and disappointed but not surprised that taxing ciggies did not appear.
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With the G8 summit starting next week and most of Japan in lock-down mode, it is quite timely to look at this survey from goo Research, conducted in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun (their 84th joint survey, just in case you’re interested), into the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit.

Demographics

In the middle of June 1,088 members of the goo Research online monitor panel aged 18 or over completed an internet-based questionnaire. No further demographic information was provided.

There is definitely an over-the-top police visibility even here in Kansai, well away from the venue; even though we had foreign minister and environment minister meetings here last month, if anything the policing has got more visible since they finished. I don’t share “The sky is falling!” panic that many fellow foreigners (and ex-foreigners) are in, and I’m glad that they are being strict at immigration regarding the anti-G8 demonstrators with their worthless press credentials handed out by the organisers of anti-G8 protests.
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