For the first time since World War II, Japan’s prime minister can now ask government agencies to provide information to a newly formed intelligence council, giving Tokyo a stronger legal tool to gather security information.
The National Intelligence Bureau, with a cabinet-level National Intelligence Council chaired by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, began operating in July. The bureau is designed to collect, coordinate and analyze information already held across the government, then report to the prime minister, as opposed to conducting its own spying or investigations.
“The new system is given a legal mandate which can aggregate intelligence of other ministries and agencies, such as the foreign and defense ministries,” said Ken Kotani, a risk management professor at Nihon University.
Japan’s intelligence effort has always been divided among the police, foreign ministry, defense ministry and the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, which the new bureau replaced.
After World War II, the United States and its allies kept Japan from building a powerful, centralized intelligence agency, fearing a return to militarism. Japan had to rely on small, fragmented units and leaned on U.S. intelligence instead. This decision left Japan with gaps it has tried to fix as it rebuilds its intelligence system under new laws.
Kotani warned against comparing the bureau with the CIA, the FBI or Britain’s MI6.
“It’s misleading, because the NIB does not collect information by itself,” he said. “The NIB is the control tower of the Japanese intelligence community,” with a role closer to the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee or Australia’s Office of National Intelligence.
The reform is the latest step in a broader shift in Japanese security policy since former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s tenure, said Yu-Hua Chen (陳宥樺), an associate professor at Akita International University. That effort has increasingly focused on China, he said.
Japan is debating legislation similar to foreign interference laws in Taiwan and Australia, Chen said, aimed at countering what Tokyo sees as information operations and united front activity from China. The changes could also improve the collection and integration of information on Chinese military activities, he added.
The reform comes as Japan’s latest defense white paper calls China its greatest strategic challenge and warns that closer China-Russia military cooperation is bringing pressure closer to Japan. The paper also warns that a Taiwan crisis or blockade could disrupt energy and semiconductor supply chains important to the Japanese economy.
“China is, of course, very unhappy to see Japan’s intelligence reforms,” Chen said. “Beijing’s narrative is to portray Japan’s intelligence changes as one aspect of growing militarism.”
Stephen Nagy, a professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, said Tokyo sees the reform as necessary if it is to deepen security cooperation with Washington and, potentially, the Five Eyes intelligence program partners, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
“Japan doesn’t have the domestic legislation and the intelligence apparatus to be able to secure information in the same way as the Five Eyes partners,” Nagy said. A more organized intelligence system, he said, could help Japan protect the sensitive information of its intelligence partners.
Better intelligence cooperation could improve decision-making in a regional crisis, Nagy pointed out, by giving Japan and its allies a stronger basis for judging developments such as a Taiwan contingency, cyber attack or foreign influence operations. “If they [the Japanese government] have better information about that, then they can better place their resources and have better decision-making about whatever contingency happens in the region,” he said.
For Taiwan, Chen of Akita International University said the reforms could provide new momentum to cooperation with Japan on information warfare. Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, and Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, have already included the issue in their 2+2 security dialogue, he said, and Taipei’s experience countering Chinese information operations could become more relevant as Tokyo expands its own capacity.
Kotani, the risk management professor, said the reform is still underway, with Tokyo still considering an anti-spy law and an overseas intelligence service.
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