Photo/Illutration The Chang'e 6 lunar probe and the Long March-5 Y8 carrier rocket combination sit atop the launch pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan province, China, on May 3. (REUTERS)

The moon should not become a new battleground for power, where leading nations compete for dominance like on Earth.

Establishing international rules for collaborative resource exploration on our planet's only natural satellite is urgently needed.

China's lunar module returned to Earth on June 25, successfully bringing back soil from the moon's far side for the first time in the world.

This sample is invaluable material for research into the moon's origins. It is essential that China widely share the findings of the analysis of the sample by publishing the results in a scientific paper or other means.

However, lunar exploration is actually polarized, with the United States and China as the dominant players.

Ideally, samples collected and brought back from the moon or any other celestial body would be studied and analyzed through a collaboration of researchers worldwide, but this is not usually the case.

In a series of lunar missions that started in 2007, China has launched six unmanned lunar probes, accumulating significant achievements. In collaboration with Russia and others, China plans to construct a basic lunar base structure around 2028 and send astronauts there by 2030.

Meanwhile, the United States, with participation from Japan and Europe, aims to land astronauts on the moon in 2026 for the first time since the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s under the new Artemis lunar exploration program.

The program includes launching a lunar rover, which the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is developing with Toyota Motor Corp., and a planned moonwalk by a Japanese astronaut.

The Chinese mission’s recent retrieval of soil from the moon's south pole, a region of great scientific and exploratory interest due to several unique characteristics, including the assumed presence of water ice, has made lunar resource development more tangible.

The south pole area is also a target for the lunar exploration programs of the United States, Japan and Europe, a fact that raises the potential for fierce, high-stakes competition.

The United Nations' Outer Space Treaty, a treaty on the basic principles for exploration and use of outer space known as the "Constitution of space," prohibits territorial claims in outer space but does not address issues concerning resource development.

Discussions to establish rules for resource development in space are under way at the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, but there is little momentum for reaching an agreement.

A “first-come, first-served” approach to unregulated resource development on the moon must be avoided. Multinational talks must be accelerated toward sustainable development and disciplinary norms incorporating the viewpoint of environmental protection.

In 2020, the United States concluded the "Artemis Accords,” a set of nonbinding multilateral agreements with seven other nations, including Japan.

These agreements confirmed the basic principles of the Outer Space Treaty, such as peaceful purposes and transparency, and allowed resource extraction and use.

The number of signatories to the accords, which also call for progress toward international rules for moon and Mars explorations, has grown to 43 countries.

In Japan, the space resources law was enacted in 2021, allowing corporate resource development projects under national permission. Ensuring transparency and broadening understanding of space resource development efforts is crucial.

Adherence to the Outer Space Treaty is fundamental to international efforts to establish solid rules for space resource development.

The treaty states that exploration and the use of outer space should be "for the benefit and in the interests of all countries" and forbids monopolization by specific countries or companies.

It also forbids the establishment of military bases or installations. As a member of the treaty, China is not exempted from any of these principles.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 27

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