The National Image Of Japan In "People's Daily" (2012.12-2014.11)

China and Japan are neighbors in East Asia.After returning to be the Prime Minister of Japan in December 2012,Shinzo Abe,the President of the Liberal Democratic Party,changed the previous “ice breaking” diplomatic policy toward China which came out since 2006 when he became the Prime Minister for the first time,which aimed to repair the Sino-Japan relationship.Under the strategic background of “Asia Pacific rebalancing” of the US,Shinzo Abe's policy took tougher attitude toward China.Before the 2014 APEC summit in Beijing,leaders of China and Japan didn't have face-to-face talk for more than one year.The relationship between two countries got into an unprecedented hard situation.With content analysis method,this article selected comprehensive newspaper People's Daily——the most authoritative and most widely circulated newspaper in China——as research object,to explore and analyze the national image of Japan in People's Daily,within the period from Shinzo Abe became the Prime Minister on December 26 of 2012 until two countries' leaders talked to each other at the 2014 APEC summit in Beijing on November 26 of 2014.According to this research,during this period,the proportion of negative reports on Japan is apparently higher than the proportion of positive and neutral reports.When it comes to different topics,there are large differences about report tendency.In issues like domestic affairs,economy,diplomacy,military and history,the tendency of attitude is negative.However,in issues like society,culture,education,technology and sport,the tendency of attitude is obviously positive.According to the analysis of the sample,the writer summarized the Japanese image in People's Daily during this period as three traits: “desire to break the Post-1945 Status Quo”,“desire to revive but lack in strength”,“improve itself by others”,and then discussed the reasons.