Japan is Dangerous!

So, I was on Japanprobe.com just now when I saw a posting about a survey taken asking Japan, South Korea, and China what countries or regions they consider the biggest military threat.
here are the results.

Japan:

North Korea (73.6%); 2. China (46.1%); 3. Russia (24.3%)

China:

1. Japan (78.2%); 2. U.S. (75.2%); 3. Taiwan (36.6%)

South Korea:

1. North Korea (71.0%); 2. China (46.6%); 3. Japan (37.5%)

These numbers actually are linked from another blog called GlobalTalk 21. Anyways, there are a couple interesting things about this poll. Most of it stemming from China being the odd man out.

Both Japan and Korea picked North Korea with almost the same percentage as the number 1 military threat to their country with both countries around 70%. They next chose China again with an equal 46%. It is only on the third choice that Japan picks Russia and Korea choosing Japan.

China has very different countries on its list. The first is Japan with a whopping 78% followed by the USA with 75% and Taiwan rounds out the top 3 with 37%.

Now this is supposed to be a semi China focused blog, so Ill comment about China's numbers. Again, anybody who knows China probably knew that Japan would be #1 on the list. 60 years ago, they did some pretty terrible things while they occupied China. However, the Japanese did very similar things in Korea during the war. But it is China who sees Japan as a much bigger threat. About 40% more than Koreans do today. That has to beg the question of why? Why such a huge contrast?

The best answer I can come up with is an education system who deliberately teaches Japan as still a very real enemy. The second is the efficiency of the Communist propaganda machine which influences every type of media and ways of communication reminding people of the enemy of Japan whose people are immoral, and would like nothing better than to invade China again. (Just about any time of the day in China you can turn on the TV and see a war drama between Japan and the heroic Chinese.) Of course this threat couldn't be further from the truth. 60 years later, it is simply a distraction to make a kind of "rally round the flag" mentality keeping people looking suspiciously outward so they don't begin doing the same thing inward. And after 60 years of this, it appears to be working very well.

I was also surprised to see the USA as China's #2. Not only that but only a few percentage points away from Japan! But now that I think about it, Americans would definitely have China in the top 3 if asked the same question. Still, it would be interesting to find out why America, who's RECENT history in China has been much more friendly compared to Japan's is only 3 points away from Japan. Okay, I know America's rep in the world, but I never thought it would be that bad in China.

Last of all is Taiwan coming in at 3rd. Are Chinese really threatened by a small island off their coast? Also, they consider Taiwan as part of China, so would that be a civil war? Maybe this is the real reason USA is #2. Without its support of Taiwan, the list, at least for China would be much different because there would be no independent Taiwan.