Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on June 13, 2023. (PHOTO / POOL / AFP)

TOKYO - Japan on Tuesday adopted its first space security initiative to utilize the frontier for defense purposes over the next 10 years.

The roadmap is based on three basic policies: drastically expanding the use of space for national security, ensuring the safe and sustainable use of space, and creating a positive cycle of space security and space industry development.

Analysts pointed out that under the pretext of "security," Japan continues to strengthen the so-called "counterattack capability" in various fields

"For the sake of national security, we will dramatically scale up the use of space systems and ensure the safe and stable utilization of the domain," said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a government meeting.

According to the initiative, the government also vowed to strengthen collaboration between the Defense Ministry and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to support private companies engaged in critical space technology development.

But the Japanese government's apparent attempt to accelerate the integration of the country's defense and civilian sectors may provoke a backlash from opposition parties, which have sought to criticize a series of relatively hawkish security policies hammered out by Kishida's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Kyodo News said Tuesday.

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Analysts pointed out that under the pretext of "security," Japan continues to strengthen the so-called "counterattack capability" in various fields, which is widely believed among the Japanese public that the acquisition of such capability completely violates its exclusively defense-oriented policy.