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Summary: This article probes Japan's space diplomacy in a world returned to great power competition. Today, Japan's space diplomacy manifests in a wide variety of contexts at the global, regional and bilateral levels. The principal argument is that the Japanese state is responding to gathering external threats through diplomacy that communicates, persuades and bargains in the country's science, economic and military space interests. This proactive positioning allows Japan to situate its advanced technologies in the context of fierce economic competition, cultivate an image as a pacifist and responsible actor in the turbulent international order, and set pragmatic expectations about building peaceful prospects in outer space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A quantum leap is under way in space as a domain of human activity. The global space economy has rapidly reached almost USD450 billion in size and is projected to grow to over USD1 trillion by the 2040s. There are hundreds of actors involved, from space agencies to private companies to start-ups. Over 70 countries have space programmes and 14 have launch capabilities. These developments have involved intense transnational and international co-operation and competition, across both the public and private sectors. With such rapid changes underway, this article takes stock of how these developments impact international relations. Overall, this is the first special issue in the field of international relations to use theories of diplomacy to bring to light the various ways in which experts, scientists, astronauts, space enthusiasts and professional diplomats, among others, have shaped the formal and informal interactions among states in this key area of foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan, and its alliance with the USA, is central to the unfolding politics of the new space race. This essay draws attention to the ways the Japanese state has positioned its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests related to space in the context of the US–Japan alliance. It probes the material and ideational elements that are driving the Japanese state to closer alignment with its formal ally in the military, civilian, and commercial space domains. But while all these realities bode well for alliance collaboration, there are reasons to be cautious. While the Japanese state has proactively aligned its space policy and postures with the USA, it is not forever caught in the US orbit. Given the uncertain fate of US domestic politics that bears on great power competition, Japan is also prudently positioning for how the status of its ally may evolve. This is what complicates straightforward projections about alliance cooperation and balance of power politics in the unfolding international space order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from small satellites are rapidly converging with high-speed, high-volume computational analytics. "Small satellites, big data" (SSBD) changes the ability of decision-makers to persistently see and address an array of international security challenges. An analysis of these technologies shows how they can support decisions to protect or advance national and commercial interests by detecting, attributing, and classifying harmful, hostile, or unlawful maritime activities. How might the military, law enforcement, and intelligence communities respond to maritime threats if these new technologies eliminate anonymity at sea? The emerging evidence presented on maritime activities is intertwined with national security (e.g., territorial and resource claims, sanctions violations, and terrorist attacks), legal and illicit businesses (e.g., illegal fishing, trafficking, and piracy), and other concerns (e.g., shipping and transit, chokepoints, and environmental damage). The ability of SSBD technologies to observe and catch wrongdoing is important for governments as well as the commercial, academic, and nongovernmental sectors that have vested interests in maritime security, sustainable oceans, and the rule of law at sea. But findings indicate that transparency alone is unlikely to deter misconduct or change the behavior of powerful states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and Japan are among the world's top space powers, with significant technical competence in both conventional and 'newspace' capabilities. Since the early 1990s, each country has also taken a keen interest in shaping the governance of outer space activities. But they have done so in remarkably different ways, calling into question Asian states' supposed preferences for soft and informal institutions. Japan has led the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum, involving both state and nonstate participants, which is guided by a set of principles. China has opted for a high-profile formal intergovernmental design, the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, with a Convention and all the trappings of a formal organizational structure. This article assesses the activities of China and Japan in the new space race, discusses how and why the design of their space governance differs, and reflects on prospects for competition and cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a speech by Professor Saadia M. Pekkanen, delivered at The Future of Space Governance conference held in Athens, Georgia in October 2019. Topics included the space governance by Japan and China, the governance regimes to prevent conflict and war, and the need to encourage democratization, bolster commercialization, and prevent militarization in outer space.

The year 2015 revolved around Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who led his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a resounding electoral victory in December 2014, thus opening the door for the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito to pass a major revision of Japan's security policy, despite public outcry and over a fragmented field of opposition parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was all about Abe in 2014. With few intra-party challengers, a divided and weak opposition, and a huge victory in a December snap election gamble, Japan's Prime Minister Abe finds unusual scope to lead the nation both domestically as well as internationally in his chosen course of ''proactive pacifism.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The explosive proliferation of trade forums poses fundamental questions about why states forum-shop as they pursue liberalization. We advance a novel argument linking the institutional design of international trade forums directly to domestic politics. If industrialized democratic states have to appease conflicting forces in the domestic political marketplace as economic liberalization proceeds apace, they should prioritize forums that allow them to exert greater control over the pace and scope of liberalization. This prioritization is influenced by a tradeoff between two critical dimensions that combine differently across all international trade forums: the gains dimension, which determines the extent to which states can increase economic welfare based on the forum’s rules; and the control dimension, which determines the extent to which they have power to set the forum’s rules in line with their political concerns. We use the case of Japan to demonstrate the importance of the gains-control tradeoff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese government today is actively and strategically choosing among various institutional forums to deal with its trade partners, namely bilateral venues, multilateral settings, and even preferential regional arrangements. This ongoing high-profile institutional selection is somewhat unprecedented for Japan, and demands a review of the historical and analytical reasons that drive decisionmakers to select one forum over another. Overall, the Japanese case suggests that the aggregate trade forum choices are influenced both by the desire to institutionalize mechanisms for stabilizing a range of expectations and by the necessity of guaranteeing market access and protection of investment in the fastest time possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses Japanese legal activism with respect to World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement processes. Annexes of the WTO charter; Overview of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade cases involving Japan; Reason for Japan's interest in dispute resolution procedures.

Traces and analyzes the increasing use of rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) by the Japanese government. Japan's historical relationship with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/WTO system; Implications of Japan's emerging strategy for both rule of WTO law and the future of trade diplomacy among the major global players which is best characterized by aggressive legalism at its core.