破晓之爱
A closer look at Japan’s newly launched ‘spy bureau,’ a signal of its growing militarist ambitions_我的网站
一 | 19日，韩国被拘留总统尹锡悦完成拍摄嫌疑人照片等相关手续后，成为韩国宪政史上首位以现任总统身份正式进入拘留所羁押的总统。韩国首尔西部地方法院19日凌晨批准对尹锡悦的拘留令。
As an old saying in both Chinese and Japanese goes, "Bad deeds travel a thousand miles." This means that wrongdoing will eventually spread far and wide, becoming known to all.
Ignoring strong opposition at home and abroad, the Japanese government has officially inaugurated the "National Intelligence Bureau." Dubbed by some Japanese media outlets and opinion leaders as a postwar institution close to the "Tokko", or Special Higher Police - which targeted critics of the Japanese government ahead of World War II (WWII) - the new bureau has been met with widespread criticism and protests ever since its establishment on July 31.
What exactly is Japan's "National Intelligence Bureau"? What is the background of its organizational structure and leadership? What impact could its deep entanglement with US intelligence agencies have on regional security? And what strategic ambitions of the Japanese authorities lie behind its creation? In this story, the Global Times takes a closer look at this newly established intelligence agency and examines the dangerous attempts by Japan's right-wing forces to break free from the postwar order and revive a militarist path.
Striking a historical nerve
On July 31, Japan held the first meeting of its new National Intelligence Council chaired by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and launched its secretariat, the National Intelligence Bureau, reported The Mainichi on the same day.
Although the full details have not been made public, the meeting was believed to have confirmed plans to draw up the first-ever strategy to guide intelligence-gathering and analysis activities, as well as to move forward with consideration of a "anti-espionage" bill aimed at countering covert operations by foreign powers, NHK reported the same day.
The bureau's launch date has struck a historical nerve in some Asian countries, victims of Japanese aggression during WWII.
Hiroshi Onishi, vice president of the Japan-China Friendship Association, told the Global Times that Japan's decision to establish the body on July 31 is a date that evokes memories of the notorious Unit 731 bacterial warfare squad of imperialist Japan, and is bound to remind people in China and other Asian countries of that dark history.
The Japanese government should consider how this timing may be perceived by people in other countries, especially in China, he said.
Under a law to establish the National Intelligence Council, passed by the Japanese Diet in May 2026, Japan is building a new intelligence system centered on its National Intelligence Bureau.
According to a July 31 story by the Xinhua News Agency, the bureau, which integrates intelligence functions from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice and the National Police Agency, had been described by the public as the "command center" of intelligence operations.
Why did Japan establish this bureau? Establishing this bureau enables the Japanese government to "make sound decisions based on higher-quality, timely information amid today's complex and challenging international environment," The Japan Times quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara as saying on July 31.
However, to some Chinese scholars in Japanese studies, explanations like this are little more than a cover for the current right-wing Takaichi administration's real agenda.
"Of course, the Japanese authorities need to put forward some seemingly plausible justification; otherwise, they would have no way to explain it to the public," Da Zhigang, a research fellow at the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies of the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Da said that the Takaichi administration's push for the reform of the intelligence system is directly tied to Japan's military expansion, its drive to strengthen military capabilities and constitutional revision.
"The real purpose is still institutional expansion - to make the intelligence system more compatible with, and better serve, the series of military expansion and geopolitical strategies Japan is now advancing," he noted.
Adding uncertainty
The National Intelligence Bureau largely inherits the roughly 730 personnel and functions of its predecessor, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, with around 30 new posts being authorized to be added, according to The Japan Times.
The bureau reports directly to the Japanese prime minister, and has centralized intelligence functions that were previously dispersed across multiple ministries and agencies under Japan's cabinet office, which overturns Japan's postwar decentralized intelligence architecture, Da said.
"Compared with the system of mutual checks and constraints designed under Japan's pacifist constitution after the WWII, the country's current intelligence apparatus is highly centralized," Da told the Global Times. "Constraints that were once built into the Japanese constitution, which has set forth pacifism, now seem to be gone."
If the bureau is a new engine of centralization in Japan's intelligence system, then Kazuya Hara can be called the engine's first operator. According to media reports, Hara, the bureau's first director, joined Japan's National Police Agency in 1990, and had also served at Japan's embassies in Russia and the US. In 2019, Hara became executive secretary to the then prime minister Shinzo Abe, and in 2023 he began serving as director of Japan's cabinet intelligence.
In May, shortly after the legislation was passed, Hara reportedly made a special trip to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters. FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that Japan's initiative would "greatly enhance our shared partnership," and said he looks "forward to fully supporting them and working with them on cybersecurity, counterintelligence, espionage and counterterrorism to strengthen our cooperation," Japan's Jiji Press reported on May 8.
Moreover, according to a July 13 report by The New York Times, during the process of setting up the bureau, Japan had "privately approached partners such as the United States, Australia and Germany in recent months for advice on technology, staffing and priorities."
"Intelligence officials from the United States, Japan's main security ally, have offered input on cyberdefense systems and methods of countering industrial espionage, according to two people familiar with the conversations," the NYT report said.
A tightly bound intelligence alliance is adding multiple layers of uncertainty to the security landscape in Northeast Asia. Da said that the bureau's establishment would amplify Japan's intelligence-driven disruptive power in bilateral and multilateral geopolitical interactions in Northeast Asia, while its deep entanglement with intelligence networks beyond the region could further intensify the compound shock to the regional security order.
"For countries around Northeast Asia, the costs of social contact and other forms of interaction will rise," Da said.
The establishment and operational launch of a brand-new intelligence agency means that Japan is already making advance intelligence preparations for a potential war, Lü Yaodong, a research fellow from the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
East Asian countries, as well as all peace-loving forces around the world committed to safeguarding global peace, must remain highly vigilant, Lü said.
Accelerating Japan's remilitarization agenda
China has a time-honored saying: "Those who persist in wrongdoing will bring destruction upon themselves."
Less than two weeks after its launch, Japan's National Intelligence Bureau has already come under broad criticism. What it has triggered is not only questions about the functions of a new agency, but also deep concern over whether Japan is drifting away from its postwar path of peace and back toward militarism.
One major criticism is that the intelligence power in Japan has become overly concentrated, while checks and balances remain inadequate. The law to create the National Intelligence Council, which governs the bureau, "does not include any mechanism to oversee the activities of intelligence agencies" despite concerns, as reported in a May 29 editorial piece by The Mainichi.
For many people in Japan, another concern is that the new intelligence agency lacks institutional safeguards to protect citizens' rights. On May 27, the day Japan's Upper House passed the law, large numbers of people reportedly spontaneously gathered outside Japan's Diet, holding banners reading "Stop revising the constitution and expanding the military" and "Oppose the National Intelligence Bureau bill that will monitor citizens."
It is completely unfeasible for Japan to set up an intelligence agency detached from corresponding restraints, said Makoto Ito, a Japanese lawyer and the director of the Japan Institute of Constitutional Law.
If the bureau and related measures such as the proposed anti-espionage law are allowed to push forward on their own, outside a democratic oversight framework, the risks will only be magnified, Ito told the Global Times.
More concerning still, some observers pointed out that the establishment of the National Intelligence Bureau is not an isolated move, but a key link in the Takaichi administration's systematic effort to break free from the postwar order and push Japan further down a path of rearmament.
Japan is strengthening intelligence centralization through the creation of the bureau, while also accelerating the deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles and conducting live-fire drills, said Lü. This indicates that Japan is advancing its military expansion strategy on two fronts at once: intelligence gathering and actual combat strike capability. He criticized these moves as not only a serious shock to the regional security landscape, but also an open challenge to the international order of peace.
The Takaichi administration is devoting energy to intelligence-system reform precisely when the public urgently needs relief from persistent inflation and a rising cost of living, and that these reforms directly serve Japan's military expansion, force buildup, constitutional revision and even efforts to undermine the country's Three Non-Nuclear Principles, said Da.
"In fact, this also shows that Japan's right wing has now reached a stage where it simply no longer cares about people's livelihoods," he said.
The establishment of Japan's National Intelligence Bureau is "another negative development in Japan's domestic and international policies on security," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on July 31, the bureau's launch date.
"For some time, Japan has been accelerating its remilitarization agenda under the pretext of national security and external threat. Such moves have put the regional peace and stability at risk and drawn widespread concern across the international community," Mao warned.
"Those running the Japanese government need to learn lessons from history and act prudently," she noted.
。据韩国媒体报道，尹锡悦已离开首尔拘留所嫌疑人休息室，被羁押在首尔拘留所收容楼中。与被捕时不同的是，作为嫌疑人身份的尹锡悦需办理各项入所手续，包括将私服换成囚服并手持收容号码牌拍摄嫌疑人照片、确认个人信息、接受细致身体检查、录入指纹等。在完成各项手续后，他已正式进入拘留所羁押。据悉，羁押尹锡悦的独居室面积约10平方米，比在逮捕期间停留的休息室空间狭小。独居室只有床垫和电视等物品。
二 | 因为尹锡悦尚未定罪，所以会给予部分总统警卫待遇。尹锡悦被拘留期间，如果需要到相关调查机关到案接受调查，将由法务部护送车移送，同时出动警卫处车辆和人员进行护卫。尹锡悦最新发声据韩联社1月19日报道，因涉嫌发动内乱而被批捕的韩国总统尹锡悦19日通过代理律师团就其支持者闯入法院表示，充分理解民众的愤怒，但希望以和平方法表达意见。
三 | 报道称，尹锡悦说，希望警方不要采取强硬应对措施，而是宽容地妥善解决问题。
四 | 尹锡悦表示，他在国政陷入乱局的情况下宣布实施紧急戒严，此举仅为防止韩国宪政秩序崩溃，让国家恢复正常运转。首尔西部地方法院18日对尹锡悦进行逮捕必要性审查，认为嫌疑人有毁灭证据之虞，于19日凌晨2时50分许签发逮捕令。之后，大批尹锡悦支持者闯入法院，砸碎法院建筑的门窗玻璃，并破坏部分设施和物品。大检察厅（最高国家检察机关）已组建专项组调查应对。据新华社，大批尹锡悦支持者闯入该法院，有人使用灭火器或投掷石块砸碎法院建筑的门窗玻璃，一些人进入内部进行破坏。法院外墙遭受严重毁损，还有人抢夺执勤警察的盾牌，辱骂并殴打警察。警方随后投入大量警力，强制疏散人群。据韩媒报道，警方或以聚众闹事罪、故意破坏公共物品罪等对涉事人员发起指控。之后，尹锡悦通过其律师团发表的声明说，对首尔西部地方法院发生的情况感到非常震惊和遗憾。韩国公调处又有新动作据央视新闻，尹锡悦方面19日拒绝出席定于当天下午对其进行的拘留调查。韩国高级公职人员犯罪调查处（公调处）19日发布消息说，“尹锡悦没有出席当天下午2时的拘留调查，将再次要求其明天上午10时出席”。另据韩联社报道，若尹锡悦继续不接受调查，公调处可能考虑强制将其带离拘留所调查或前往拘留所进行调查等措施。当地时间2025年1月18日，韩国首尔，一辆蓝色厢型车被认为是运送总统尹锡悦离开首尔西部地方法院视觉中国 央视新闻消息，当地时间19日晚，韩国高级公职人员犯罪调查处（公调处）对外表示，已于当天向首尔拘留所送达相关文书，禁止在拘留中的总统尹锡悦会见除代理律师以外的人员。当地时间1月19日，就韩国高级公职人员犯罪调查处（简称公调处）传唤被拘留总统尹锡悦接受调查，尹锡悦律师方表示，今天很难接受调查。
五 | 当天稍早前，韩国公调处在上午举行的记者会上表示，将在当天下午对被拘留的总统尹锡悦展开调查。继成为韩国宪政史上首位被捕的现任总统之后，尹锡悦又成为韩国宪政史上首位接受拘留调查的现任总统。尹锡悦将面临什么？据总台驻韩国记者唐鑫介绍，尹锡悦目前身负的主要嫌疑为，涉嫌违反宪法和法律发动紧急戒严，禁止国会议政活动并颁布违法的戒严令；出动军队和警察封锁国会，试图阻止国会依照法律解除戒严；以及试图逮捕国会议长、执政和在野党党首等主要政治人物，并派兵控制韩国中央选举管理委员会等等。韩国执政党支持率反超最大在野党 当地时间17日，据民调机构“盖洛普韩国”发布的最新民意调查结果显示，执政党国民力量党支持率升至39%，高于最大在野党共同民主党的36%。这是时隔约5个月来，国民力量党支持率首次反超共同民主党。韩国总统尹锡悦2024年12月3日发布紧急戒严令后，其所属的国民力量党支持率急速下滑，共同民主党支持率则持续走高。
六 | 差距最大时，共同民主党支持率一度达到国民力量党支持率的两倍。但本月以来，国民力量党支持率呈回升势头。
七 | 民调机构认为，尹锡悦和国民力量党通过“持续传递政治信息”重新挽回并巩固保守派阵营的支持，可能是该党支持率回升的原因之一。另有分析认为，共同民主党不顾政治乱局，将施压现政权摆在优先位置，导致支持者流失。编辑|陈柯名 杜恒峰校对|汤亚文封面图片来源：视觉中国每日经济新闻综合自央视新闻、新华社、参考消息等 每日经济新闻。
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