A new space race in Asia, my article in East Asian Forum

The East Asian Forum of the Australian National University published an article of mine, titled, A new space race in Asia, which examines the new and evolving geopolitical context that has pushed India to become more active in strengthening space cooperative engagements with countries such as Japan, France and the US. Indeed, rise of China and the strategic consequences of its rise have been important contextualising factors for these countries to coordinate their space programmes and policies.

Asia houses three established space powers — Japan, China and India — with space exploration goals ranging from social and economic development to improving telecommunications and national security. But it is the national security drivers of Asian space exploration that are becoming more prominent, partly driven by the changing balance of power equations both within Asia and beyond.

China’s growing space capabilities are driving much of the space competition in Asia. For one, it has led to greater cooperation in space exploration between India and Japan. In September 2017, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to put outer space at the centre of their bilateral relationship. They welcomed the ‘deepening of cooperation between the space agencies of the two countries in the field of Earth observation, satellite-based navigation, space sciences and lunar exploration’. Later in November 2017, the president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum announced that ‘India and Japan will lead the space sector in the Asia Pacific region’.

The Indian space program is more than six decades old, and until recently, New Delhi’s primary focus was in using space technology to improve social and economic conditions for its population. Before China’s first anti-satellite (ASAT) test in January 2007, India appeared to think that security competition in outer space was confined to the big powers. The Chinese ASAT test awakened India to the kind of challenges it needs to confront in its own backyard and demonstrated that even areas of the global commons such as outer space are not spared from terrestrial geopolitical competition. The ASAT test gave way to new debates in India on the kind of counter-space capabilities that it must develop to protect its own space assets.

India says that it has the technological blocks for a successful demonstration of an ASAT capability, should the need arise. An Indian ASAT test would go against the grain of India’s decades-long stance that space must be used for peaceful purposes alone and must not be weaponised. This shift in rhetoric reflects India’s recognition that if it does not keep up with emerging trends in space, it stands to lose in a critical area of technology.

Similar deliberations are taking place in Japan and the new Japanese space policy highlights space security as a key focus area.

Yet space competition in Asia began well before the Chinese ASAT test. China’s first manned space mission in October 2003 — making China the third country after the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve this feat — provided the initial spark. This achievement is part of China’s larger plan to carry out a human exploration program, which has as its final goal the development and operation of a Chinese space station in low earth orbit. At a time when the International Space Station will be winding down its operation, China plans to get its own station up and running by 2024.

China’s growing counter-space capabilities, including developing technologies such as the robotic arm, and the increasing number of close rendezvous operations of Chinese satellites are also raising concerns about the possible security implications of China’s military space program.

In response to China’s accomplishments in space, India and Japan initially looked at pursuing their own independent lunar missions. But so far they have not been able to successfully compete with China’s robotic exploration program. For instance, China’s Chang’e robotic lunar exploration program is considered technologically far superior to anything India or Japan could develop. The Chang’e 4 mission plans to land and explore the surface on the far side of the Moon, which no other country has done so far. Neither India’s ad hoc lunar and Mars robotic missions nor Japan’s exploration of the Moon and near-Earth objects come close to challenging China in this regard. India and Japan have instead decided to combine their efforts, outlined in the Modi–Abe statement.

India is also undertaking meaningful conversations with other space players, such as France and the United States. With China’s aggressive posturing in the South China and East China seas and its growing profile in the Indian Ocean, the use of space assets to achieve maritime domain awareness (an understanding of issues related to the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy or environment of a country) has the potential to emerge as a shared area of cooperation among India, the United States, Japan and France.

All of this suggests that a new space race is heating up in Asia that is compounded by the region’s changing balance of power alignments. Space is becoming yet another domain of competition among Asia’s great powers. It can no longer be seen as an innocent and cooperative arena of policymaking, and one cannot remain sanguine about outer space stability.

It is unlikely that the balance of power equation in Asia will stabilise anytime soon, which would suggest that the budding space race is only going to continue to intensify into the future.

From Sea to Space: India and France Deepen Security Cooperation

In this week's column for The Diplomat, I focused on the visit of the French President, examining two facets that gained particular traction in India-France security relations. The essay titled, "From Sea to Space: India and France Deepen Security Cooperation," examined why and how outer space and maritime security had come to feature prominently during the French president’s India visit this week.

French President Emmanuel Macron was on a four-day visit to India earlier this week, with both sides trying to elevate the India-France strategic relationship. The bilateral partnership covers an entire gamut of issues from defense, civil nuclear, and space to climate change, clean energy, and urbanization, and India and France signed 14 agreements. But what was of particular importance on the defense side were those on outer space and maritime security in the Indian Ocean.

For the full essay, click here.



On outer space, the two countries identified nine specific areas in the India-France Joint Vision for Space Cooperation of which a few including high resolution earth observation, space domain and situational awareness, satellite navigation, space transportation, and human exploration, stand out. Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and high resolution earth observation are especially relevant in the context of the growing concerns around maritime security and the Indian Ocean.

The two countries have shared concerns on a number of issues, including, as they framed it, “maritime traffic security, especially in the Horn of Africa; respect of international law by all States, in particular freedom of navigation and overflight; fight against organized crime, trafficking, including in weapons of mass destruction, smuggling and illegal fishing.”

Recognizing the need to develop a joint action plan, the two sides signed a Joint Strategic Vision for Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region. A practical joint action in the area of maritime surveillance around Indian Ocean waters would at the very least call for a clearer understanding of the maritime environment that they are operating in and this has pushed both India and France to increase sharing of information on the emerging maritime scenario in the Indian Ocean.

The MoU signed between the two space agencies foresees them joining hands to design and develop “products and techniques, including those involving Automatic Identification System, to monitor and protect assets in land and sea.” This, the two sides believe, will significantly boost maritime domain awareness in the region. Given the growing reliance and vulnerabilities that exist in the outer space domain, the two space agencies also agreed to develop a cooperative agenda that will protect their space assets, by also developing infrastructure that is necessary to create a broader engagement on SSA.

Underlying all these practical steps is the shared strategic vision, particularly driven by the strategic uncertainties around China’s rise and its growing assertiveness. The two share a common strategic objective of “establish[ing] an open, inclusive and transparent cooperation architecture, with the aim of delivering to all associated with the region, peace, security and prosperity.”

Modi, during his meeting with Macron said that both sides believed in the importance of the Indian Ocean for the global community, while Macron in his own remarks acknowledged the importance of the Indian Ocean for the stability of the entire region. Most significantly, India and France agreed to reciprocal access to each other’s naval facilities to military facilities. France has facilities in the island of La Réunion, Mayotte, and the French Southern and Atlantic Lands. Indian access to French military facilities will help India spread its reach and influence, especially in western Indian Ocean.

This is similar to the understanding that India had earlier reached with the United States with the signing of LEMOA. That agreement occasioned a lot of criticism in India, with commentators suggesting that India was bargaining away its precious “strategic autonomy.” Indeed, that agreement was delayed for years precisely because of the fear of such criticism.

But the agreement with France has largely received a positive reception in the Indian media. The difference between the treatment of these two agreements indicates a clear evidence of the continuing opposition among sections of the Indian elite to any closer ties with Washington. Indeed, precisely for this reason, France may be a good supplement to India’s strategic partnerships. It should also be remembered that France has generally been supportive of critical issues of concern to India, including India’s nuclear weapons program (before it acquired its current level of legitimacy).

On the other hand, the limitations of the partnership should also be kept in mind. If France has not received as much importance in New Delhi as some others such as the United States, despite France’s well-acknowledged sympathy for India’s strategic concerns, the reason has been mostly due to France’s relatively limited capacity. The current bonhomie overlooks this old and unchanged limitation: though France can help India, its own remaining weakness will likely not allow Paris to become a major source of strategic support to New Delhi. But in these troubled times, one more supporter is surely welcome.