Japan is launching its first new centralized intelligence agency since World War II. The move has been controversial, with some worried it would deviate from Tokyo’s pacifist ideals, but others say it is critically needed in a country with so many security weaknesses that it has been dubbed a “spy paradise.”
The National Intelligence Agency will officially launch on Friday, replacing a previous organization criticized as fragmented and inefficient and laying the groundwork for broader changes, including the creation of an anti-espionage law and a new external foreign intelligence agency similar to the U.S.’s CIA and Britain’s MI6, experts say.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday nodded to these ambitions, saying, “These measures are just the first step in information reform.”
“Given the increasingly unstable world situation, there is an urgent need to address new ways of warfare,” she said.
Takaichi has been at the forefront of these efforts since his election last October. A staunch conservative, she advocates strengthening security and defense and supports amending Japan’s pacifist constitution.
The New York Times reported in July, citing people familiar with the matter, that the administration is seeking advice from Western partners, including the United States, Australia and Germany, on strengthening its intelligence capabilities.
Until now, Japan’s main intelligence agency was the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO), which had about 700 employees but had little authority.
Other intelligence teams from the Foreign Ministry, Justice Ministry, Defense Ministry, National Police Agency and other departments all collect intelligence but often fail to share it in a consistent or strategic way, said James DJ Brown, a political science professor at Temple University’s Japan campus and author of a book on Russian espionage in Japan.
From Friday, CIRO will be upgraded to the National Intelligence Agency, an operational management agency that collects and analyzes information from various government agencies.
Most importantly, the bureau is growing in importance and other ministries are also officially required to share information. It will be supervised by the newly established National Intelligence Council, chaired by Takaichi and made up of cabinet ministers.
Its scope of national intelligence includes counterterrorism efforts, responses to national emergencies, and countermeasures against foreign intelligence services, such as espionage and covert influence operations.
Empire of Japan once had a formidable security and intelligence agency, which was used against its own people in the crackdown on dissent in the early 1900s.
After Japan’s defeat in World War II, a deliberate effort was made to democratize the country and cut it off from intelligence attacks. But that means Japan currently has a major weakness, especially for a developed country that plays such an important geopolitical role.
For example, Japan does not have its own foreign intelligence agency, which is unusual compared to major U.S. allies such as Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, said Philip Shetler-Jones, a senior researcher on Indo-Pacific security at the Royal Integrated Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.
He also said that the lack of an anti-espionage law allows foreign spies and local informants to collect information from within Japan “without violating the law.”
“This is an unusual situation given the post-war situation. Because of the occupation of Japan and the subsequent security relationship with the United States, the Japanese government didn’t really have to do much work because it was protected by the United States,” Shetler-Jones said.
However, these weaknesses have a major impact on Japan’s security and its standing among countries around the world. “Japan is seen as a very leaky country. If that were the case, other countries would be less willing to share information because they might find out the next day that the information was in the newspaper or leaked to a foreign power,” Brown said.
Some consequences are more severe. A shocking New York Times investigation in July revealed how Russia exploited these weaknesses to obtain Japanese parts and smuggled them to Russia, where they were used in missiles and drones against Ukraine.
Previous Japanese leaders have tried to bring about change, most famously former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who warned in 1983 that Japan had become a “paradise for spies.” However, his proposal for an anti-espionage law that would have been punishable by death met with widespread opposition and was not passed.
Part of that failure, Brown said, was simply that it happened too soon after World War II ended. Memories of human rights abuses by Imperial Japan were still fresh in people’s minds, fueling fears that such legal and information reforms would lead to a return to surveillance, militarism, and repression.
Currently, the situation in Japan and the world is very different.
Enough time has passed that memories of the war and fears of returning to a police state have subsided among the Japanese people, Brown said. There is also a growing recognition that Japan faces new and powerful threats.
Just across the ocean are North Korea, China, and Russia, all of which have powerful espionage capabilities that Japan is ill-equipped to protect against. As a U.S. ally with about 55,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in military bases, Japan is an attractive target.
Those countries may be seeking information about the activities of U.S. troops in Japan or the deployment of new U.S. weapons, Brown said. Russia would be interested in stealing political secrets, such as Japan’s future Ukraine policy. China may want to collect technological secrets from Japanese companies.
RUSI’s Shetler-Jones said the Japanese are also more cautious because the three countries are “more aligned now than they have been in many years.”
This was on full display last September when Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked side by side in a Beijing military parade in a show of authoritarian solidarity. That cooperation was also seen in recent joint naval exercises between Russia and China, and when North Korea sent troops to war with Russia and Ukraine.
All of this is contributing to the sense that the balance of power in the region is shifting, especially as China’s dominance increases. “There’s a sense that Japan has to do more for the (U.S.) alliance and for itself,” Shetler-Jones said. “Seeing the war unfolding in Europe and Ukraine reinforced the sense that we had to act aggressively, even if we were lucky enough to have a large and powerful ally like the United States.”
Takaichi, who has been a vocal supporter of strengthening Japan’s security capabilities, will be the final piece of the puzzle. After winning a landslide in a snap election in February, she now controls a historic supermajority in the powerful House of Commons, clearing the way for her to pass legislation with minimal opposition.
Not everyone supports promoting information reform. According to public broadcaster NHK, many members of Congress opposed the bill to establish the National Intelligence Agency, and more than 200 people took part in a demonstration against it in May before it was voted on.
According to NHK, one such lawmaker, Makoto Oniki of the Constitutional Democratic Party, said, “The national intelligence agency is one of the most powerful institutions, and if it is allowed to run wild, there is a risk that it will seriously and unfairly violate the human rights of the people.”
“I oppose this bill, which is deeply flawed, as it not only raises concerns about unnecessary invasions of personal information and privacy, but also increases powers without any checks and balances in the form of democratic oversight,” Oniki said.
Mr. Takaichi’s next agenda item, the Anti-Espionage Act and foreign intelligence agencies, is likely to spark even more controversy.
“There are perfectly fine democratic laws like this all over the world, but there are also authoritarian regimes that use them to prosecute their critics,” Brown said. For example, Russia often accuses dissidents of being foreign agents, as it did for opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was assassinated in prison.
Shetler-Jones said that to prevent such abuses of power, democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States have established hearings, commissions and other measures to hold intelligence agencies accountable.
“We don’t know as much about the surveillance mechanism as we would like, so I think it’s natural for people to continue to have questions about it,” he added of Japan’s new intelligence agency.
