More than 90 percent of Chinese and Japanese people hold unfavorable views of each other's nations, a survey found Thursday, as the two countries are in a territorial standoff over a set of rocky islands in the East China Sea.

Results of the annual survey, jointly sponsored by state-run media China Daily and a Japanese think-tank Genron NPO, are the worst in nine years, the China Daily reported in its front-page article.

According to the survey, 92.8 percent of Chinese surveyed hold a negative view of Japan, 28 percentage points higher than last year.

This year's finding shows that 90.1 percent of Japanese have negative feelings toward China, compared with 84.3 percent last year.

Hu Jiping, director of the Institute of Japanese Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the daily that Beijing and Tokyo must make efforts to prevent relations from worsening.

"It is impractical to expect the territorial dispute to be solved completely. We can only agree on provisional arrangements at the moment," the daily quoted Hu as saying.

The diplomatic standoff between China and Japan over the islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, has become increasingly acrimonious over the past year. (Yonhap News)