>Last Friday, Japan’s far-right government of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi launched its new National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), a body designed to centralize intelligence gathering across the country’s various military and police agencies. This restructuring of Japan’s intelligence operations is being undertaken as Tokyo remilitarizes as part of the US-led war preparations against China and to suppress domestic opposition to such a conflict.

>**The NIB is Japan’s first centralized intelligence body since World War II.** This new body will collect information from agencies, including the Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries as well as the National Police Agency (NPA), supposedly to focus on terrorism, national emergencies, and counterintelligence nationwide.

>The NIB will streamline intelligence sharing between these different agencies while independently setting the government’s related agenda. The bureau was founded through the National Intelligence Council Establishment Act passed in May.

>The revamping of intelligence gathering operations is a major component of Japan’s remilitarization, which has sharply accelerated under Takaichi’s far-right government—a coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner Nippon Ishin no Kai. Article 9 of the constitution banning Japan from fielding a military or waging war overseas has for all intents and purposes been turned into a dead letter.

>The formation of the NIB is just one aspect of so-called “intelligence reform” with Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara stating on Friday that this was the “first step.” He added: “Strengthening the government’s central intelligence coordination function will enable it to make sound decisions based on higher-quality, timely information amid today’s complex and challenging international environment.”

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>All of this is being carried out under the basis that Tokyo lacks the intelligence tools to counter China and Russia. The establishment media has commentary and articles labeling Japan a “spy paradise,” filled with lurid tales of Russian and Chinese “agents” collecting and stealing information and technology. This includes a major piece in the *New York Times* on July 12 used to paint Tokyo as insufficiently tough on spies, specifically from Russia.

>In reality, Japan has long had one of the world’s most extensive intelligence-gathering networks, built in the post-war period, with a focus on China, North Korea, and Russia. Tokyo operates widespread signal intelligence (SIGINT) gathering networks, collecting information transmitted by electronic means. Documents revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden showed that Japan’s Directorate for Signals Intelligence had been operating since the 1950s in close collaboration with the US’s National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA has also trained Japanese spies and provided technology for mass internet surveillance, including the XKeyscore system.

>The reorganization of Tokyo’s intelligence operations is meant to expand military collaboration with its allies. Tokyo has already established trilateral intelligence agreements with the US and South Korea as well as the US and the Philippines in order to target China, as the countries carry out massive war games and the construction of a wide-ranging missile system on Beijing’s doorstep.

>The creation of the NIB was carried out in collaboration with the United States, Australia, and Germany. According to the *New York Times*, US officials have advised Tokyo on cyber-defense systems to counter so-called industrial espionage and scrutinize foreign investment. Australian officials have similarly advised Takaichi’s government on technology while the head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service recently visited Tokyo to discuss the NIB and closer collaboration between the two countries.

>**Tokyo has also sought closer cooperation with the top-level, US-led Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance, which includes the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. However, there have been reservations over what the Five Eyes members consider an “information security gap,” which has led to calls within and outside Japan for an anti-espionage law.**

>For the ruling class, free speech and association as well as other democratic rights must be done away with in the name of “national security” to prevent public knowledge of war planning and to criminalize opposition. These war plans include the extent to which Japan has played a central role in whipping up tensions with China in the Indo-Pacific alongside the US.

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>These measures are being undertaken in the face of the deepening crisis of capitalism. Japan and the US both hope to eliminate China as a major economic competitor. Tokyo at the same time is remilitarizing in order to once again independently assert its own imperialist interests through military means after three-and-a-half decades of economic stagnation.

>Tokyo has removed restrictions on exporting lethal weaponry abroad, raised military spending to 2 percent of GDP while planning to increase it further, and deployed long-range missiles on its territory for the first time. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi declared last month that Japan should begin discussions on acquiring nuclear weapons.

>Conscious of the widespread anti-war sentiment throughout the working class, this agenda is being carried out under the phony guise of “collective self-defense,” with successive governments in Tokyo whipping up an anti-China atmosphere. This can only take place through a massive assault on the democratic rights of the working class.

Japan launches new intelligence agency