

Simmering resentment between China and Japan could be escalating, according to findings that 53.4 percent of Chinese citizens polled expect the two nations to go to war as early as 2020.

Relations between the countries look worse for wear according to an annual Sino-Japanese poll by Japanese NGO Genron and newspaper China Daily.

The poll, which was released right before the second anniversary of Japan’s purchase of the Senkaku islands, showed that a record 93 percent of the Japanese have an “unfavorable impression” of the Chinese; 86.8 percent of Chinese feel the same way about the Japanese.

The long-standing mutual aversion between the Chinese and Japanese has existed for centuries, and has been recently exacerbated by the 2012 dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea.

Despite the dire predictions, some hope that relations can be eased by just hugging it out.





