S.Korean president's approval rating stays high after visit to China

SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating stayed high after his recent state visit to China, stopping the third consecutive week's downward trend, a weekly poll showed Thursday.

According to the Realmeter survey, support for Moon was 68.7 percent this week, up 0.1 percentage point from a week earlier. It was the first increase in four weeks.

The result was based on a poll of 1,508 voters conducted from Monday to Wednesday. It had 2.5 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.

The pollster said supporters for Moon were not affected by some South Korean media's negative reports on his trip to China last week.

Some of the rightist conservative South Korean media outlets negatively reported on Moon's visit to China, but according to a separate survey by Realmeter, most respondents said such reports were unfair.

Moon's ruling Democratic Party maintained the top spot with a support rate of 51.1 percent. It was followed by the main opposition Liberty Korea Party with 18.5 percent.

The minor progressive Justice Party came next with 6 percent of support scores, followed by the minor conservative Righteous Party with 5.1 percent and the centrist People's Party with 4.9 percent each. Enditem