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The Japanese CIA Is Born

Posted June. 20, 2004 22:30,   

한국어

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, Japan is expanding and revising its information-gathering organization and also consolidating plans for collecting human and material information in order to stand on tiptoe as a “Powerful Information Nation.”

The establishment of the Japanese version of Mossad, the Japanese National Defense, completed work on magnetic signatures of about 100,000 secret military documents in March. It is designed to sound an alarm by a sensor everywhere in the National Defense building when documents are taken without authorization. Secret documents printed on special paper in red are designed to change color to black when copied illegally so that it cannot be read.

At the same time, the National Defense dramatically enhanced the capability of Japan’s military information, decoding, and security by increasing the number of agents of the central intelligence bureau from 110 to 920 people.

In addition, it is making steady progress in incorporating and expanding information organizations dispersed in six or seven divisions, including the cabinet information bureau. In fact, it plans to create a new intelligence bureau by adding 1,000 employees because the cabinet intelligence bureau, currently staffed with 120 employees, cannot keep up with its role to sum up each division’s information and report to the Prime Minister.

According to the Beijing Youth Daily, Minister of National Defense Isiba Sigeru, a Japanese neocon, said, “We plan to change our Cabinet Intelligence Bureau into a new intelligence bureau such as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency or the Israeli Mossad”.

--007 School

There was a satellite picture of the bombing accident at the Yongcheon train station in North Korea on the table of Prime Minister Goizumi Junichiro on April 24. It was taken by two military scout satellites, which were launched in March last year. The Japanese government decided the amount of aid for North Korea based on this.

The military scout satellite was the result of North Korea’s Daepodong-1 intermediate-range ballistic missile that soared over Japan’s main island in August 1998. The two satellites detect military information on the Korean peninsula, China, and Russia by revolving round the Earth 15 times every day.

Japan tried to fire two satellites additionally in November last year, but postponed the launch because of firing rocket failure. However, it decided to build four satellite systems by 2006, and 137 billion yen of budget has been allocated.

It has also enhanced training for intelligence agents. Ohira School, a typical intelligence training school, recruits 50 officers from the self-defense forces, aged more than 35 years, and conducts Spartan education, cultivating the ability to collect information as well as language ability, including Korean, Chinese, and Russian.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoriko Kawaguchi said at a recent British press conference, “Japan is also admiring intelligence agents such as oo7. Because of this, we want to learn from the experience of Britain’s intelligence agencies.”



Yoo-Seong Hwang yshwang@donga.com