Tokyo: 'Spy capital' of the world

By Edward Neilan
Special to World Tribune.com

TOKYO--The worst-kept secret in diplomatic chanceries and corporate boardrooms is that Tokyo is the spy capital of the world.

From industrial espionage and internet codes to old-fashioned surveillance and disinformation, analysts agree, no place can hold a flickering candle to the capital of Japan.

"There is so much information of every kind from every nation available here," said a Western diplomat. "Because of scant preventive laws, foreign spies can operate with near impunity."

In one recent case, police said they discovered that four Russian intelligence agents collected information about unreleased electronic products in Japan.

The activities, which involved a Japanese accomplice, indicate that the SVR--the successor of Russia's KGB intelligence agency--has developed an interest in industrial espionage because Russia's economy is in such poor shape.

Nikolai Kovalyov, the head of Russians Federal Security Service (FOBS), said in March last year his agency had stopped the espionage activities of 28 foreign spies, all with contacts in Japan and in the process had arrested seven agents hired by secret service organizations in the United States, Britain, China, Spain and Japan.

Among the reasons that Japan is a clandestine agent's paradise is there is no anti-espionage law, due primarily to lingering sensitivities about the old kempeitai (thought police) of the Pacific War era. Also, lax patent laws and shipping regulations make Japan an "easy come, easy go" destination.

Example: computer software that can't be shipped from Canada to the U.S. directly is shipped first to Japan "in a plain wrapper" and then shipped back to the U.S. Lately some shipments of bootleg Viagra, the sexual empowerment drug, have been intercepted.

Sheer numbers of foreign residents is another problem in keeping track of suspected spies. Monitoring 657,000 Koreans, 234,000 Chinese, 201,795 Brazilians, 84,508 Filipinos, 44,168 Americans, 37,000 Peruvians, 18,000 Thais, 13,000 Britons, 10,000 Vietnamese, 8,000 Indonesians, 8,000 Iranians and 100,000 "others" living amid 125.9 million Japanese strains the capabilities of the National Police Agency.

Police suspect that most of the spies come from the ranks of businessmen, diplomats and journalists --"anyone who can handle a laptop computer," a police agency official was quoted. At least 200,000 of the foreigners call themselves "businessmen" and live here with their families, communicating regularly around the world by telephone, fax, email and regular mail.

There are 124 embassies, 24 sub-embassies or international organizations like trade offices and the Chosen Soren North Korea Residents Association establishment that is widely believed function as a de facto foreign ministry for North Korea. There are 1,536 accredited diplomats , or "legal spies," as some Japanese call them.

There are 832 news correspondents representing 280 news organizations from 48 countries and territories. The United States accredits 334 correspondents here, Britain 159, South Korea 52, France 46,Germany 40, Taiwan 21, Australia 19, Hong Kong 18, Russia 15, down to one each from places like Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Nigeria and Norway.

Long neglected, interest has been revived in Japanese intelligence recently with the North Korean firing of a rocket over Japanese territory in August. Politicians hurried to propose legislation that would allow building of Japanese "spy satellites" and joint research with the U.S. on the Theater Missile Defense(TMD) system. Up to now, Japan has had to be satisfied with leftover crumbs from U.S. satellite intelligence reports. There is interest, but little information available on the other side of the coin, Japanese intelligence.

Even before the recent North Korean rocket shot called attention to weak Japanese intelligence, an American, Andrew L. Oros, was looking into the situation. A doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, Oros had begun investigating for his thesis "Change and Continuity in Japan's Foreign Intelligence-Related Activities: Institutional Evolution in Post-Cold War Japan."

He had heard rumors of an intelligence build-up in Tokyo. To get closer to the action, he gained a research fellowship at the Graduate School of Law and Politics, University of Tokyo.

Aware of Japan's "closed intellectual shop," as detailed by Ivan Hall in his book "Cartels of the Mind," Oros was nonetheless astounded by the cool reception to his efforts. "Never have so many doors closed so fast," he told me. "I may have to broaden the scope of my paper."