ASEAN Space Programmes: Navigating Regional Rivalries SYNOPSIS COMMENTARY ASEAN as Laboratory for Space Development and Cooperation

With its huge development and connectivity challenges, and as the region in the world most affected by natural disasters, the development of robust space services is for the ASEAN countries a matter of great importance. [...] As for the Philippines, the latest entrant in the regional space sector, it based the majority of its early space efforts on an important collaboration framework with Japanese universities, leading to the training of dozens of young engineers and the deployment of the first domestic micro- and nano-satellites. [...] The most visible elements of the regional rivalries are the China-led APSCO and the Japan-led APRSAF. [...] These are, respectively, the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP, 1995), and the Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (RCSSTEAP, 2014). [...] The PHL-Microsat programme, which formed the basis of the current Filipino space efforts and which led to the launch of the Diwata 1 and 2 microsatellites, was a major capacity building programme conducted by Japan’s Hokkaido University and Tohoku University.