By Zhou Yongsheng
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara recently claimed in a public speech that, to strengthen its overseas intelligence activities, Japan needs to establish its own foreign intelligence agency equivalent to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Kihara stated bluntly that Japan should proactively gather information from overseas.
Prior to this, the Japanese government established the National Intelligence Bureau on July 31 this year. As the command center for the Japanese government's intelligence collection and analysis, the bureau not only has the authority to coordinate intelligence work across government departments and require ministries and agencies to provide intelligence, but also reports directly to the Japanese Prime Minister. Its purpose is to achieve a high degree of centralization of intelligence authority within the government.
In terms of current staffing, the bureau initially has only about 700 personnel, most of whom have been transferred or assigned from intelligence units across various government departments. It has no independent function for training intelligence personnel, leaving the National Intelligence Bureau relatively weak in independent intelligence collection and assessment.
Precisely for this reason, the Takaichi government has stepped up efforts to "explore" the establishment of a dedicated foreign intelligence agency as one of the core items on its so-called "intelligence reform" agenda. This shows that Japanese right-wing forces intend not only to monitor public opinion at home and seize opportunities to spread and instill right-wing ideology, but also to extend their intelligence reach further overseas, with a particular focus on neighboring countries, in preparation for abandoning the "exclusively defense-oriented" policy and embarking on military adventures.
To advance its so-called "intelligence reform" agenda, the Takaichi government has fabricated and enumerated a series of pretexts. For instance, it has hyped up "security threats in Japan's neighborhood" and the activities of foreign intelligence agencies in Japan, claiming that the country is in a "position of weakness" in military and intelligence capabilities. It has thus portrayed the establishment of intelligence bodies such as the National Intelligence Bureau and a foreign intelligence agency as a "necessary move," attempting to construct a narrative in which Japan is a "victim" or the "weaker party" and thereby find excuses for its "remilitarization" and overseas intelligence expansion. How strikingly this resembles Japan's gradual slide toward military expansion before World War II.
Looking back at the period before World War II, Japanese right-wing forces similarly portrayed Japan as a "victim". They claimed not only that Japan's interests had been "harmed" by China, but also that the country had been subjected to severe sanctions under the so-called "ABCD encirclement"—a term referring to the economic embargoes imposed on Japan World War II by the United States, Britain, China, and the Netherlands—and that Japan's survival was under "grave threat". It was in the course of manufacturing these narratives of "threat" and "victimhood" that pre-war Japan accelerated its march toward a militarist system and external expansion.
Today, the Takaichi government is intensifying its promotion of narratives and logic reminiscent of pre-war Japanese militarism to provide cover for a series of right-wing political initiatives, including military and intelligence expansion. First, it fosters a public narrative that Japan is "under threat" and "in a position of weakness", thereby laying the groundwork for policy changes involving military and intelligence expansion. After subjecting the public to a "saturation bombing" of such rhetoric, it presents the establishment of new military intelligence bodies and related intelligence systems as a natural and logical step. Meanwhile, by publicly discussing "how the relevant legal frameworks should be structured", it pretends that it has "no choice" but to establish these intelligence bodies. It also claims to give Japanese society a full "right to know" during the process, creating the impression that it is going to great lengths to protect Japanese citizens and national security. Through this orchestrated performance, Japanese right-wing forces seek to secure a "popular mandate" of their own making.
Against the backdrop of increasingly frequent activities by right-wing forces in Japan, the National Intelligence Bureau and the planned foreign intelligence agency not only seriously undermine the already fragile mutual trust on security among countries in the region, but also serve as a new tentacle through which Japanese right-wing forces seek "remilitarization" and test the limits of such efforts. Countries in the region must remain on high alert.
(The author is a professor at the Institute of International Organizations, Jilin International Studies University, and a professor at the Institute of International Relations, China Foreign Affairs University)
Editor's Note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.