China-Japan Conflicts in Media Texts: Insights from Keyword, Theme, and Topic Analyses

The primary aim of this paper is to conduct in-depth keyword, theme, and topic analyses of 29 Google articles concerning conflicts between China and Japan. From a linguistic and corpus-analytic perspective, frequency analysis reveals that Japan is the most frequently occurring keyword, followed in descending order by China, Taiwan, Takaichi, Beijing, and minister, indicating which lexical items serve as central anchors in the discourse. Further theme analysis identifies a network of semantically and functionally related keywords, including force, alliance, crisis, nation, issue, case, cabinit, and history, which highlight the corpus's focus on political leadership, diplomatic engagement, and national interests. Topic modeling demonstrates that China has the highest topic probability, followed by Japan, Taiwan, and Takaichi, while within Topic 1, Japan again occupies the most prominent position, followed by China, Taiwan, and Takaichi, reinforcing Japan's central role in shaping the dominant discourse. These findings illustrate how keyword frequency, thematic centrality, and semantic relationships interact to structure discourse, reveal focal actors, and construct geopolitical narratives in media texts.