I have a couple of workarounds for you. There's a guy that has a pure Java AWT, which should obviate the need for an X installation.

Otherwise, you can run Xvfb, which implements X in a virtual frame buffer, which Java can use to render its widgets. Xvfb is a part of most X installs these days, but you might have to figure out how to get it to install; it probably won't by default. And make sure that you don't have a window manager running against the Xvfb. I accidentally did that in the past once, and the AWT calls would never return because it was waiting for the window to be interactively placed. Just running Xvfb by itself (with appropriate switches and options) should be enough.