台灣的軍事社會關係近年來成為民眾們關心的重要議題。舉凡義務役、教召改革、軍方與民主化、國防產業的軍民合作等等，在當今的地緣與國內政治背景之下，特別是從今年烏克蘭戰爭以來，都躍入大眾視野之中。儘管台灣的軍事社會學研究已有多年發展，一般的媒體討論似乎仍然比較重視政治學與國際關係的看法，社會學的觀點則相當少見。故而此議題這兩年來也成為中研院社會所比較亞洲轉型主題研究小組持續關注的焦點。承本小組先前所舉辦的軍事與社會系列演講、去年的國際學術工作坊，以及討論台灣安全問題與軍隊國家化的講座，在今年的研討會上，我們希望能繼續深化主題，邀請研究台灣、日本、澳、印、菲等國家的軍事政治與社會學者，聚首討論亞洲的軍事與社會關係的變遷。並且希望能藉此推展台灣軍事社會學的研究，並吸引更多人投入此一領域。
Introduction: Taiwan’s military-civilian relations have become a major issue of public concern. Topics such as reform of the compulsory service and development of the defense industry have all jumped into the public eye in the context of an increasing and more obvious geopolitical pressure, especially since the start of the Ukraine war this year. Although Taiwan’s military sociology research has already a long history, most media and public debates seem to pay more attention to the views of political science and international relations, and less so from sociology. The research team on Asian Social Transformation in Comparative Perspective of the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica has therefore taken interest in these issues over the past two years. Following a series of lectures on topics such as Taiwan’s security issues and the nationalization of the military, along with the international academic workshop we held last year, during this year’s workshop held in cooperation with TSA & Ping-Tung University, we hope to deepen this thematic by gathering recent research on the cases of Taiwan, Japan, Australia, India, the Philippines, etc., and we hope it will contribute to inciting more sociologists to dive into this field of research.

Facing the challenge of a rising China, does Japanese government change its threat perception of China? Does the change of threat perception impact Japan’s security policy? Do Japanese domestic legal and social norms shift to response to these new security concerns? Drawing from Japanese official documents and leaders’ remarks, this article indicate not only Japanese government, Abe Administration in particular, has perceived China’s increasing military capabilities and its maritime activities near the Senkaku Islands as a threat, but also form a narrative that Japan must work with like-minded friends, namely the United States and its allies, to deter these existing and forthcoming threats. The changes of threat perception directly led to the change of legal norms, including the reinterpretation of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense and a series of security legislation enacted in 2015. Moreover, by referring to surveys on perception toward China, polls on security policy, support rate to political party etc., this article shows that the Japanese public generally support the increasing cooperation between Japan and the US and its allies, not in favor of China, and support LDP’s defense policy. 

Keywords: Threat perception; Japanese security policy; U.S.-Japan relations; Sino-Japanese relations; Social norms