What does Japan want in the Indo-Pacific? It can be tough to tell, because at the moment, Tokyo seems to be pursuing incompatible aims.

“Smart city” development has become a fashionable policy and research topic. A growing number of central and local governments in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, in partnership with companies from diverse sectors (construction, transport, energy, water, etc), consulting firms, NGOs and experts, are now developing smart-city-related projects. 

In 2018, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified 24,100 people in Germany as right-wing extremists. More than one out of two right-wing extremists is described as “violence-oriented”.  These figures demonstrate the high level of threat in the German constitutional democracy, which has already manifested itself in the form of various terrorist attacks against foreigners, religious communities and more recently politicians.

India’s space program has grown and evolved significantly in the last five decades. The program originally focused on developing space assets that provided direct developmental benefits, for example telecommunications and remote sensing satellites that helped both in improving communication facilities and giving direct assistance to India’s farmers. But over time, India has shifted a part of its focus towards space exploration and other high-profile missions that do not have as clear a developmental purpose as earlier. This includes, for example, India’s Mars and Moon exploratory missions. Overall, India has been fairly successful in these efforts and its space program has become a comprehensive one that includes not only a robust launch capacity and very large remote sensing satellite systems, but also a very well rounded scientific and deep space exploratory program.

France’s recently launched Indo-Pacific strategy has attracted many critical and sarcastic comments.

South East Asia is an area of utmost importance for Japan’s economic, political and security interests, amounting to “a core strategic interest” for Tokyo.

What is the role of law in international relations today that increasingly seem to favour assertions of power?

From the 2000s, the United States has developed an extraterritorial legal policy that began with fighting corruption but has since broadened considerably.