China-Japan relations better, still not great

Chinese and Japanese people hold more positive views lately toward China-Japan relations, while issues of history and territory stick out as the main factors creating negative feelings, an annual survey released on Thursday showed.

According to the survey of more than 1,500 Chinese and 1,000 Japanese, 22.8 percent of Chinese said they believed bilateral relations are "very good" or "relatively good", an increase of 8.8 percentage points over last year.

The proportion of Japanese respondents who said they held a similar view increased from 1.9 percent last year to 6.7 percent this year. At the same time, Japanese who believe bilateral ties are "bad" or "relatively bad" dropped to 44.9 percent from 71.9 percent last year.