BEIJING, July 22 -- A recent poll by Japanese news agency Kyodo News found that less than half of the respondents viewed Japan as an aggressor in World War II (WWII) as it was.

The 49 percent marked a visible decline from the 56 percent who regarded what Japan perpetrated in WWII as aggression in a 1994 survey by the Japan Association for Public Opinion Research.

Besides, 9 percent of the Kyodo News poll respondents branded the war as one of self-defense, while 41 percent offered no opinion on Japan's role.

The survey also indicated that the portion of those viewing Japan as an aggressor increased with age: 53 percent of the respondents above 60, 46 percent of those aged 40 to 59, and 42 percent of those aged 20 to 39.

Those expressing no opinion included 51 percent of the young, 44 percent of the middle-aged and 35 percent of the seniors.

Meanwhile, in the Kyodo News poll, only 6 percent said they have direct knowledge of the war, including battlefield experience, compared to the 34 percent in the 1994 survey.

Most respondents -- 54 percent -- said they learned about the war from school teaching and books, and 24 percent said their knowledge came from parents or other people.

In the mail-based poll, carried out from May to June to gauge Japan's public opinion 70 years after the country's defeat in WWII, 63.2 percent of 3,000 randomly selected adults sent back responses.

Also in the survey, 67 percent said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should, in his planned 70th-anniversary statement, apologize for Japan's colonial rule and aggression before and during the war.

The most frequently cited diplomatic priority for Japan, chosen by 42 percent, was its relationship with other Asian countries. More than 70 percent said Japan should make efforts to improve its soured relations with China and South Korea.

As Abe's ruling bloc is ramming controversial new security bills -- which will gut Japan's pacifist constitution -- through parliament, the poll found 60 percent said the Japanese Constitution should not be altered.

That marked a rise from the 1994 survey, which found 55 percent supportive of maintaining the pacifism-centered basic law.

In addition, pessimism about Japan's future haunted more than half of the respondents, with 52 percent saying their country was going in a worse direction, 6 percentage points higher than the share of the optimistic folk.

And the younger the more pessimistic. The poll found that those choosing a worse direction accounted for 57 percent of those in their 20s and 30s, 54 percent of those in their 40s and 50s, and 49 percent of those above 60.