TOKYO, Apr 27 (AP) -- Japan is increasingly disliked by people in China and South Korea, according to a poll published Wednesday but taken before a series of recent violent anti-Japanese riots in China.

More than 60 percent of respondents in the neighboring countries said they "dislike" Japan, according to the poll which was jointly conducted by Japan's Asahi newspaper, South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo newspaper and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in the second half of March.

The results underscored Tokyo's worsening relations with Beijing and Seoul, where many believe Japan has never truly shown remorse for its World War II atrocities in China or for its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in the first half of the 20th century.

Violent rallies erupted across China earlier this month, fueled in part by a Japanese government-approved textbook that Beijing claims whitewashes Tokyo's wartime atrocities. A feud with South Korea over a set of disputed islets has also escalated in recent weeks.

Japan's unpopularity jumped from 57 percent in South Korea in a 2001 poll and 53 percent in China in 2002, the Asahi said.

In China, Russia topped the list of countries respondents wanted to "be friends with," followed by the United States. In South Korea, China came in first, followed by the United States and Europe.

Feelings among Japanese toward their neighbors were milder, with 22 percent of respondents saying they disliked South Korea, compared to 15 percent who liked the country. Twenty-eight percent disliked China and 10 percent said they were fond of it.

More than 90 percent of respondents in both China and South Korea opposed Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a Tokyo war shrine that honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including convicted World War II criminals.

The poll results found that while most Chinese and South Koreans considered the shrine a "symbol of militarism," a majority of Japanese thought it was "a place to mourn for the war dead."

More than 80 percent of respondents in China and South Korea also said they opposed Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

The poll involved interviews with 1,781 respondents in Japan, 1,500 others in South Korea and 2,160 in China. No margin of error was provided.