Japan in Asia's Space Race: Directions and Implications

This policy brief evaluates the trends in Japan’s space policy directions, and assesses their implications for regional and global security in three parts. First, it focuses on the role of public and private players pivotal to the country’s space directions, and the context in which they have operated. Second, it sets out the main institutional and legal changes they have helped bring about. Finally, third, it lays out some implications that bear upon other space powers like China and the United States

International Relations theory and the evolution of "peaceful purposes" in outer space

This introductory chapter serves to situate and contextualize the handbook within the field of international relations (IR) theory and its major questions—why states go to war and what makes them stay at peace. These questions are especially pertinent now in the space domain, with a rising number of players, unprecedented commercial innovations, and creeping weaponization in the context of great power competition. The overview sets out the volume’s core concern with state-centric models, technological development, and peaceful uses of outer space. It then briefly summarizes the contributions of the various chapters in the volume. Finally, it ends by reflecting on the core takeaways that these contributions lead to

The Politics of Ambiguity in Asia's Sovereign Wealth Funds

Investments by Asian Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) continue to be of concern in the global economy. A common perception is that they are managed by state-affiliated entities with geostrategic motives that could somehow prove detrimental to host countries. This paper demonstrates, however, that even the definition, let alone the establishment and investment targets, of Asian SWFs are embroiled in ambiguity within home country politics. Plainly put, ambiguity refers to the absence of clear-cut policy processes, means, and goals. How do we explain the ambiguity surrounding SWFs? Ambiguity is not a cover for deliberate, cohesive, and strategic actions, because SWFs are not under the control of any one set of actors. Rather, perhaps to the discomfort even of home country sovereigns, ambiguity is a messy domestic product of contending political forces that do not allow a marked trend toward any one single policy equilibrium on sovereign investments, whether domestic or foreign. While this reality is perhaps understandable in a democratic polity, it is also equally true of authoritarian ones in the region. In both types of cases, ambiguity is constructed inadvertently by the interactions of state, interstate, and intrastate actors, each with their own interests and expectations about the role of SWFs. Analyzing the cases in Singapore, China, Japan, and other Asian countries, from this unifying perspective suggests that while ambiguity may fuel external anxiety concerning home country intentions, it actually reflects far more domestically salient controversies about SWF activities than is typically appreciated.

New Entrants: Nations

In this panel moderated by Harlan Cohen experts discussed the question: What are the emerging governance challenges as new nations emerge as space-farers