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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.

Japan's trade strategy in World Trade Organization (WTO), which helped it to win many legal trade disputes and constrain powerful partner like United States is described. Tokyo has cleverly positioned itself on the right side of international law, by using the favorable outcomes at the WTO to make the United States appear deficient in upholding its general obligations under the WTO and complying promptly with WTO recommendations.

In major trade disputes which have ended up before the World Trade Organization, Japan had not prevailed against other countries because its defence used only social arguments for fear of exposing its visible trade barriers and restrictive practices to legal scrutiny. Now, Japan has a new strategy which can be best characterised as 'aggressive legalism' in challenging and successfully thwarting its trade partners in similar disputes.

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.

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.