A joint opinion poll in Japan and China shows slight improvement from last year in people's perceptions of each other's country. But the proportion of Japanese with negative impressions of China remains high, at 87 percent.

Japanese think tank The Genron NPO and the China International Communications Group conducted the survey between July and September. A total of more than 2,500 people responded.

Asked about their impressions of the other country, 87.3 percent of respondents in Japan said they had bad or relatively bad impressions of China, down 3.6 percentage points from last year. The figure in China was 62.6 percent, down 3.5 points.

In reference to the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the survey asked if respondents were satisfied with the current state of bilateral ties.

43.9 percent of Japanese respondents said the relationship is dissatisfying, while 50.5 percent in China said so.

40.3 percent of Japanese and 42.1 percent of Chinese cited unfriendly political relations as the reason for their dissatisfaction.

Genron NPO officials said there is no sign of improvement in the perceptions of the two countries' people about bilateral ties.