Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity, and the Evolution of Security Practice by Andrew Oros

Author:Andrew Oros [Oros, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Diplomacy, Military, Japan, Political Ideologies, Political Science, Wars & Conflicts (Other), Asia, History, Security (National & International), General
ISBN: 9780804770668
Google: b4DaJYLcPhoC
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2009-07-23T11:40:54+00:00

The Western countries are pushing forward money-making projects to redouble their efforts to commercialize space industries and increasing their competency. . . . Now is the time, and it is essential for Japan, to establish a national strategy to strengthen the basis of cutting-edge technology and to promote in a timely manner ongoing space projects so that we can succeed in global competition.42

In this report, there is no explicit mention of military satellite applications, though it is reasonable to expect that Japanese firms will actively seek out military-use applications for their satellite business, especially given the government's recent signal that BMD research is not seen to violate the Diet resolution on the peaceful use of space.

The enthusiasm of government ministries, agencies, and politicians helped MELCO and NEC to actively promote their products. NEC had been promoting its version of a satellite system, though it was hindered by a JDA procurement scandal in which NEC was implicated. According to the Asahi Shimbun, NEC was the first corporation to formally present a surveillance satellite project to the LDP, in 1997.43 At this time NEC proposed a system consisting of one optical and one radar satellite, with the optical satellite capable of a resolution of 0.4 meters, a level far superior to the system ultimately contracted and one used today only by military satellites.44 On August 25, six days before North Korea fired the Taepodong missile, MELCO president Ichiro Taniguchi attended an LDP Science and Technology Council meeting to make an in-depth presentation on “multipurpose precision observation satellites.” In the session, Taniguchi stressed the importance and advantages of possessing surveillance satellites. The MELCO presentation on surveillance satellites could not have come at a more fortuitous time, as it must have been fresh on several legislators' minds when they heard of the Taepodong overflight on August 31.

In sum, although news reports of the time frequently stated that the idea of Japan owning multipurpose satellites emerged after the Taepodong Incident, this claim is patently false. Major Japanese defense producers—namely MELCO, NEC, and Toshiba—had sought for years to secure government support for national satellite development in a variety of forms. Japan had long been a space participant, but only in the realm of civil and commercial activity. The Taepodong Incident provided the spark to justify taking these activities to the next level, to allow further Japanese corporate cooperation with the JDA in the use of outer space. The Taepodong Incident provided the final push needed by those advocating that Japan acquire surveillance satellites to empower a recrafting of the security identity of domestic antimilitarism to allow for this new policy outcome.

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