Japanese feel calm about U.S.

About twice as many Japanese have friendly feelings for the United States as for China, a newspaper survey showed Thursday amid deteriorating relations between Tokyo and Beijing.

About 65 percent of those polled said they feel affinity toward the United States, compared with only 31 percent toward China, the Mainichi newspaper survey showed. About 68 percent of the respondents said they harbor no friendly feelings for their Asian neighbor, compared with 33 percent for the United States.

The poll reflects increased tensions between Japan and China over disputed undersea gas deposits, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a controversial Tokyo war shrine and new Japanese textbooks that critics say gloss over Imperial Japan's wartime atrocities, reports the AP. I.L.