A ‘pearl’ could be viewed as a sphere of influence seeded, secured and maintained through the use of economic, geopolitical, diplomatic or military means. The ‘string of pearls’ is about China’s unambiguous maritime strategy that investments in increasing its sea power. This is essentially a multi-pronged strategy that challenges dominant US interests in the Indian Ocean and sends a clear message to India that the Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean by increasing the dependence of the littoral states in the region on China.
For almost the last 50 years, space collaboration has significantly remained intact between France and India. They have worked together on a range of issues from satellite applications, developing small satellites to earth system science and weather satellites.
Iran’s investments in space should not be viewed only through the narrow prism of a nuclear threat but as a nascent attempt to challenge the West’s technological domination.
After becoming the first country to oppose the annual non-binding UN resolution ‘Preventing an Arms Race in Outer Space’ in 2005, the US made it clear to the United Nations that it ‘will continue to consider the possible role that [S]pace-related weapons may play in protecting [its] [S]pace assets.’ This was only a precursor to the 2006 National Space Policy of the US that has cleared the way for the deployment of Spacebased weapons by the US.
STI 2013 envisages the creation of a word-class infrastructure for R&D and skill development as well as encouraging the scientific community by providing adequate opportunities and better career options.
The most interesting aspect of India and Japan coming together is that they are also proposing to engage with other states where REEs are available for excavation.
India has much to learn from China with regard to using space as an ‘instrument of influence’ and also needs to expand the global footprint of its expertise.
Bio terrorism is emerging more as possibility in the 21st century not only because of the changing nature of terrorism but also because of rapid growth in life sciences. These developments have been a concern for the BWC regime. In this backdrop the paper discusses the 7th Review Conference which was concluded in December 2011.
This book explores the character and contours of the Asian Space Powers. At present, Asian states like China, Japan and India are found investing in space technologies with analogous social and scientific and probably with divergent military intents. Other Asian states like Israel, South Korea and Malaysia are also making investments in the space arena. States like Iran and North Korea are faulted for using space launches as a demonstrative tool to achieve strategic objectives. This work examines this entire maze of activities to unearth where these states are making these investments to accomplish their state-specific goal or are they also trying to surpass each other by engaging in competition.
India’s inadequacies in the space arena are not limited to how much weight its launch vehicles can carry into space but also extends to the number of launches that ISRO can carry out in a year.
China’s ‘String of pearls’ in Space
A ‘pearl’ could be viewed as a sphere of influence seeded, secured and maintained through the use of economic, geopolitical, diplomatic or military means. The ‘string of pearls’ is about China’s unambiguous maritime strategy that investments in increasing its sea power. This is essentially a multi-pronged strategy that challenges dominant US interests in the Indian Ocean and sends a clear message to India that the Indian Ocean is not India’s ocean by increasing the dependence of the littoral states in the region on China.