A Japanese government survey issued on March 11, 2016, revealed an increase in the percentage of Japanese who do not feel friendly toward China, which has reached a record high of 83.2 percent. The deterioration in sentiment has occurred despite a recent thaw in bilateral relations between Japan and China. The percentage stood at 83.1 percent in the previous survey in 2014, the highest since the government began taking a survey of the kind in 1978. Japan's Cabinet Office said 14.8 percent of those surveyed said they feel friendly toward China, unchanged from 2014.