Japan's Security Transformation In The Dynamics The Senkaku Islands Dispute Between Japan And China (2012-2024)
Keywords:
Japan Security Transformation, Senkaku Island Dispute, Japan and China, Japanese PacifismAbstract
This descriptive qualitative research aims to explain the analytical results of the transformation of Japan's defense policy in 2012-2024, which was triggered by sustained pressure from China's gray-zone tactics around the Senkaku Islands and is supported by quantitative data. To analyze this, apply Hagström & Williamsson's Integrative Matrix model, which integrates the horizontal dimensions of capability (realism), policy (liberalism), and norms (constructivism) and synchronizes them with four typologies of foreign policy change to measure the multidimensional scale of policy shifts. It employs a most-likely case study design, based on the logic that if intense maritime coercion at the border fails to erode Japan's pacifist norms, domestic identity stands as an unyielding structural barrier to systemic pressures. The empirical findings reveal a partial transformation driven by a normative lag: (i) a material shift in the capability dimension by the defense budget expansion target of 2% of GDP 2027 and counter-strike capabilities; (ii) a realignment in the policy dimension, which redefined China as an 'unprecedented strategic challenge' in the National Security Strategy (NSS) 2022; and (iii) a stagnant domestic normative posture due to civil society resistance against revising Article 9 of the Constitution. It concludes that Japan's security transformation is at the level of Problem/Goal Change with Partial Normative Consolidation, indicating that changes in the capability and policy dimensions have not been fully consolidated within the domestic pacifist identity. Also, this research contributes to the theoretical debates on East Asian security by demonstrating how domestic ideational constraints persist as a structural buffer under external systemic pressures.
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