Over 60 percent of respondents to a recent Mainichi Shimbun opinion poll want the government to step up diplomatic efforts to urge North Korea to give up its provocative acts rather than increasing military pressure on Pyongyang.
The survey also shows that the approval rating for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rose 1 point from the previous poll in March to 51 percent while the disapproval rating for his administration came to 30 percent, down 1 point.
The Mainichi Shimbun conducted the telephone survey on April 22 and 23 covering 1,599 households with at least one 18-year-old or older member randomly selected across the country. A total of 1,011 people from these households responded. The response rate was 63 percent.
Of the respondents, 64 percent were in favor of Tokyo putting more efforts into resolving the problem of North Korea's provocative acts through diplomacy, far above the 21 percent who called for increasing military pressure on Pyongyang. Among men, 58 percent said the government should step up its diplomatic efforts while 32 percent called for applying more military pressure on North Korea. Sixty-eight percent of women urged the government to make more diplomatic efforts, while 13 percent favored increased military pressure.
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