Jun. 22, 2012 By Paul Kallender-Umezu - Defence News
Tokyo — The Upper House of Japan’s Diet June 20 passed legislation that shifts control of the nation’s space policy and budget, and opens the door to military space development programs with an
emphasis on space-based missile early warning.
The raft of legislation, based on the Bill to Amend the Law of Establishment of the Cabinet Office that was sent to the Diet on Feb. 14, enables the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office to take
control of the planning and budgeting of Japan’s government space program. It also removes an article in a prior law governing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the nation’s
equivalent to NASA, which had restricted JAXA’s ability to pursue military space programs.
Prior to the legislation, JAXA had been de facto controlled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and was overseen by a MEXT committee called the Space
Activities Commission (SAC), leading to criticisms of regulatory capture.
At the same time, JAXA’s space development has been restricted to an extremely narrow “peaceful purposes only” policy, which meant the agency was unable to develop specifically military space
programs.
The new legislation enables the Cabinet Office to set up a Space Strategy Office, headed by the prime minister, which will have the ultimate say on all policy and budget decisions. It will be
supported by a consultative Space Policy Commission of five to seven academics and independent observers.
The legislation also scraps MEXT’s control of JAXA and abolishes SAC, said Kazuto Suzuki, associate professor of international political economy at the Public Policy School of Hokkaido
University.
Japan’s space development has been hampered by the peaceful-purposes-only restriction, and by what many outside MEXT see as programs focused too much on technological development for its own
sake, leading to expensive launch systems and satellites that serve little practical purpose for the nation, Suzuki said.
The passing of the law ends a process that began nearly a decade ago by politicians looking for ways to leverage Japan’s space development programs and technologies for security purposes, to
bolster the nation’s defenses in the face of increased tensions in East Asia.
On top of an increasingly confident China, Japan faces a potentially belligerent and unstable North Korea just across the Sea of Japan. Since 1998, North Korea has consistently flouted and broken
promises, norms and international laws in developing and testing nuclear weapons and missiles.
JAXA will now be permitted to develop space programs in line with international norms, which are governed by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The treaty allows military space development, but not
the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
As the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will all have a form of “joint control” over JAXA, the space agency will gradually move away
from its purely scientific, non-military role, said analysts and experts involved with drawing up the legislation. Under the new arrangement, each ministry will be able to propose its own space
programs.
METI, for example, is interested in promoting dual-use Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites and an air-launch space access system, according to the ministry.
Suzuki said there also is strong bipartisan political support for Japan to develop and launch its own missile early-warning system to support the nation’s small fleet of Aegis destroyers for
upper-tier defense, and its PAC-3 systems for lower-tier defense.
The Cabinet Office also will take direct control of the budget and program development of Japan’s regional GPS system, called the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.
More immediately, the Cabinet Office is likely to set up the Space Strategy Office and Space Policy Commission as early as July 1, said Norihiro Sakamoto, a research fellow at The Tokyo
Foundation, a think tank based here.
The Space Strategy Office will quickly move to draft new laws and policies to shift Japan’s space focus away from purely research and development programs to a more national, security-orientated
approach that encourages the industrialization and commercialization of Japan’s space industry.
In particular, Japan needs to draw up a comprehensive space law, a “Space Activities Act,” which will provide a legal framework for privately funded space initiatives, and a five-year space plan
to run through the second half of the decade.
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