Opinion Poll: Turkish Image of Japan (Outline of Results)

May 22, 2012
Japanese

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned a Turkish research company to conduct an opinion poll on the image of Japan in Turkey from February 14 to March 14, 2012. (The sampling error is plus or minus 2.99% at a 95% confidence interval.) The outline of the results is as follows.

Interest in Japan, general views, etc.
When asked how much interest they had in Japan, 61.6% reported "very interested" or "rather interested". In addition, 83.2% reported that Japan-Turkey relations were "friendly relations" or "almost friendly relations".

Regarding aspects of interest in Japan, 60.3% answered "science/technology", far more than the 29.7% that answered "culture/arts". On the topic of areas in which the two countries should strengthen their cooperative relations, 56.4% answered "science/technology".

With regard to impression of the Japanese, the top two responses were "careful/diligent/honest (70.8%)" and "respect traditional values (31.6%)".

With regard to which country is an important partner of Turkey, Japan was in second place with 13.7% of the answers, behind "Islamic nations" at 29.9% (following Japan was the "United States" (8.4%), "Middle Eastern countries" (7.5%), the "EU" (6.9%), and "South Korea" (6.5%)).

With regard to which country is an important partner of Turkey in East Asia, 45.4% said "Japan", followed by "South Korea" at 27.6% and "China" at 4.9%.

Asked about their awareness of matters relating to the earthquakes that struck both Turkey and Japan last year, many Turkish people said they were aware of activities, with 55.7% answering that they were aware of the sending of a rescue team to Japan by Turkey's Government for the Great East Japan Earthquake, 65.2% saying they were aware of the sending of emergency aid to Turkey by Japanese Government for the October 2011 earthquake, and 63.0% saying they were aware that Japanese NGO members that had visited Turkey to assist with disaster relief had fallen victim to an earthquake in Van. In addition, 60.5% said that their impression of Japan had become better in the wake of the passing of the member as a result of the earthquake in Van.

Asked if Japan should become a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, among the Turkish people who were aware of the functions of the Council, 69.9% said that they thought Japan should be a permanent member, and 17.8% said that they thought Japan should not be a permanent member.
Other Points (Japan-Turkey relations, tourism, etc.)
Asked if they knew of the tragedy of the Ertuğrul frigate of September 1890, which was the start of friendly relations between Japan and Turkey, 29.9% said they knew of it. In addition, 44.9% said that they knew of the Second Bosphorus Bridge, and 52.5% said that they knew of the Marmaray project, which are constructed by Japanese aid.

As for visits to Japan, 2.8% said that they have visited Japan. Asked the reason why they had not visited, the order of answers was such that 39.4% said, "Japan is geographically far away", 21.7% said "expensive country", and 15.1% said "lack of information on Japan". Additionally, about tourism to Japan, Turkish people expressed interests in different aspects in the order of "ancient cities/history (temples and shrines and so on; 39.4%)", "shopping (29.8%)", and "watching traditional culture (Kabuki and so on; 29.0%)".

[Reference]
The survey was carried out face to face in 10 major cities in Turkey and featured the participation of 1,012 people between the ages of 18-65.

(*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original press release in Japanese.)

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