The row between Seoul and Beijing over the deployment of a US missile defense system has seen China overtake even former colonizer Japan in the ranking of South Koreans’ least favored countries, a survey shows.
Japan has consistently been Southerners’ most disliked country mainly due to disputes over Tokyo’s wartime atrocities including the use of up to 200,000 Korean women as sexual slaves for Japanese troops.
But now South Korea and the US have begun deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to guard against missile threats from the nuclear-armed North, infuriating China, which sees it as compromising its own capabilities.
Beijing launched a series of measures against the South seen as economic retaliation, forcing dozens of South Korean retail stores in China to shut their doors and banning Chinese tour groups from visiting.
China’s rating in an opinion poll by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies slumped from 4.31 in January to 3.21 in March, on a 0-10 scale, with 10 representing the most favorable.
Japan’s number also fell amid a diplomatic row over the "comfort women" issue, from 3.56 to 3.33.