The Saturday editions of all national papers highlighted the results of a public opinion poll on diplomacy conducted by the Cabinet Office late last year showing that a record high of 88.5% of Japanese “felt an affinity” for the United States, up 4.5 points from a year ago. In contrast, only one out of five said the same of China and two out of five felt the same way about South Korea. Even so, four out of five said the development of Sino-Japanese relations is important. With regard to ROK-Japan relations, however, close to 40% said the development of the ties is not important.