With China in mind, Indo-Pacific Quad democracies decide to beef up defences in outer space

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The four nation Quad of democracies in the Indo-Pacific, after its first face-to-face summit in Washington on Friday has decided to work together in outer space where navigation and communication satellites can be attacked.</p>
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The four Quad leaders—Prime Minister Narendra Modi from India, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Suga and host, US President Joe Biden– decided to add a new working group on space. In their first virtual summit in March, the four leaders had established <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/Quad-expands-cooperation-to-space-at-first-in-person-summit">working groups</a> in three fields– "vaccines," "climate," and "critical and emerging technology".</p>
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The space working group will exchange Earth observation satellite data, which will assist Quad countries to better adapt to the challenge of climate change and prepare for disasters, Nikkei Asia reported citing a fact sheet released after the meeting.</p>
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A Quad statement said that the space tie up would be for peaceful purposes. But analysts say that in view of the security challenge from China, infrastructure in space can be of dual use—civilian as well as military, depending on the circumstances.</p>
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The Nikkei report pointed out that a single strike can impair the  Global Position System (GPS) cluster of satellites, which are central to the warfighting capacity of US ships, planes, drones and</p>
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In written congressional testimony in  April,  the U.S. Space Command commander Gen. James Dickinson raised the red flag about the deployment of a Chinese satellite, which has a robotic arm that disables a hostile satellite.</p>
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"China also has multiple ground-based laser systems of varying power levels that could blind or damage satellite systems," Dickinson warned as quoted by Nikkei.</p>
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Simultaneously, Japan’s ministry of defence released a white paper, which especially focused on the, "Challenges in the Space, Cyber and Electromagnetic Spectrum Domains."</p>
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"There is a growing risk that the functioning of satellites could be compromised due to the rapid increase in space debris and the development of anti-satellite weapons," it noted. "Thus, securing the stable use of space has become an important issue."</p>
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After the meeting, Japanese Prime Minister Suga told reporters  that the leaders agreed to hold a summit annually. "This effort to bring Japan, the U.S., Australia and India together, initiated by Japan, has now completely taken root," he said.</p>
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