SEOUL -- More than 40% of South Koreans hold a favorable opinion of Japan, poll results released Thursday show, the highest level ever and nearly even with the proportion of people who view the country negatively.
The East Asia Institute, a South Korean think tank, found in an August online survey that 41.7% of the 1,006 respondents said they had a favorable or somewhat favorable impression of Japan, up 12.8 percentage points from last year's poll. Those saying they had an unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable impression accounted for 42.7%, the lowest ever.
