Introduction: Reading East Asia's space security dilemmas

摘要

Within debates and scholarship on the international politics of outer space there is an increasing degree of focus on the recent rise of China as a 'space power', and the implications of this rise for both regional and global security. Simultaneously contemporary Japanese space policy, which has moved towards an increased emphasis on potential 'security' applications of its space assets, forms an important part of the broader debate over Japanese remilitarisation. As a result, East Asian space policy - in particular, the intra-regional and global dynamics associated with the Chinese and Japanese space programmes as the two most developed space-faring nations of East Asia — forms a pertinent and timely area of focus within the wider study of space policy. Building on a November 2011 workshop on 'East Asian Space Policy in a Global Context', sponsored and hosted by the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Bristol, this special issue brings together a range of papers on the space policies of China and Japan, with a specific focus on their regional and global security dimensions.