- Japan plans to launch its first centralised intelligence body with help from Western allies
TOKYO 10 July 2026 (Agencies) – Japan is setting up its first centralised intelligence agency since World War II to try to modernise its defence capabilities against spies, foreign interference and other attacks from foreign adversaries.
Legislation to establish the new agency passed the upper house of Japan’s National Diet on May 27, a month after it cleared the lower house. After decades of relying on US intelligence support and after a pacifist stance was enshrined in the Japanese Constitution, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi described the law as a first step toward strengthening the country’s espionage capabilities.
The legislation creates two bodies: a National Intelligence Council that will act as the government’s command centre for intelligence gathering and analysis, and a secretariat for operations, referred to variously as the National Intelligence Secretariat or National Intelligence Bureau. The reform changes the existing Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO) into this centralised structure. The official English names of the new council and secretariat have not yet been finalised by the Japanese government. Tokyo is not building an equivalent of the US Central Intelligence Agency, but Western allies, including the United States, Germany and Australia, are reported to be advising the Japanese government on establishing the new spy agency. Ken Kotani, a professor at Nihon University, said he believes the new council and agency model will be original to Japan, while Sanshiro Hosaka, a research fellow at the Estonia-based International Centre for Defence and Security, said the reform is aimed at improving the government’s intelligence abilities by strengthening coordination, reducing interagency barriers and ensuring intelligence products better meet policymakers’ needs.
Ahead of the bill’s passage, CIRO director Kazuya Hara travelled to Washington on May 12 to meet with the FBI on reforming the agency, with reports framing the outreach as American backing for the new body with an eye on China and Russia.
Tokyo says it faces threats from nearby countries including North Korea, Russia and China, and argues a national intelligence agency is needed to counter their efforts. Analysis from the Japan Institute of International Affairs describes the 2026 reform as one of the most significant overhauls of Japan’s postwar intelligence system, ranking alongside the 2008 intelligence community reforms and the 2013 state secrets law, and points to China’s rise, North Korea’s weapons development, and instability stemming from the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran as factors pushing Japan to reduce its reliance on allied intelligence for early warning and crisis management. Kotani said Japan’s foreign and national security policy had long followed Washington’s lead during the Cold War, but that Tokyo has increasingly pursued its own course, particularly during the Trump administration. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Washington’s allies of underspending on defence and over-relying on American support, and has questioned whether the US would come to the defence of smaller allied nations — a stance Kotani said is driving Japan to build its own intelligence-gathering capacity.
Japan currently lacks an anti-espionage law, leaving foreign intelligence activity largely unpunished. Hosaka noted that former Russian intelligence officers who operated in Japan have described the country as a haven for spies, with Soviet intelligence historically targeting Japanese technology and industrial and commercial information as well as US bases in Japan. As a major US ally in Asia with an advanced technological economy, Hosaka said, Japan remains an important target for China, Russia, North Korea and others. He argued Japan needs a foreign-influence transparency law to shed light on foreign lobbying activities and deter illegal interference, along with an anti-espionage law enabling undercover operations and investigations under assumed identities.
Experts say a major weakness in Japan’s current decentralised structure is that no single body has the authority to compel cooperation among agencies or prevent intelligence data from being scattered. Kotani said CIRO’s political power has been weak since its 1952 establishment because it was never given a legal mandate over intelligence matters. Under current law, foreign representatives suspected of intelligence ties or interference are also difficult to intercept, since Japanese authorities have weak legal grounds to monitor their communications or prosecute them.
The reform has not passed without domestic scrutiny. During lower house committee hearings, opposition negotiators raised concerns that the new council and the existing National Security Council share nearly identical membership, with the prime minister chairing both and the same ministers sitting on both — a structural overlap critics argue risks intelligence being shaped to fit preferred policy conclusions rather than challenge them. Despite these concerns, every party except the Japanese Communist Party voted in favour in the lower house.
Prime Minister Takaichi, who took office in October, has accelerated the expansion of Japan’s military and security ambitions through a series of measures, of which the new intelligence body is one. In December, her cabinet approved its largest-ever defence budget at $58bn, with the Ministry of Defence saying it needed to accelerate its “transformation” and would spend more than $600m on a drone-and-laser shield to protect Japan’s southwestern region. In April, Takaichi’s cabinet moved closer to abolishing a longstanding ban on exports of lethal weapons such as tanks and warships.
The new direction triggered antiwar protests in Japan in May, though a Jiji opinion poll in April found only 19 percent of respondents opposed the intelligence reform bill, with about 40 percent indifferent and the remainder in favour. Kotani said much of the old taboo around the subject has faded and it no longer concerns many Japanese, particularly younger generations.
Japan’s defeat in World War II left its citizens deeply distrustful of state surveillance, after the wartime Special Higher Police, known as the Tokko, monitored, arrested and tortured citizens over their political beliefs. Article 9 of the constitution, drafted in 1947 shortly after the war, renounced war, and Japan has never had its own foreign intelligence service, relying instead on the United States. While the push for a new security agency has drawn some domestic criticism, Hosaka said the latest reforms fall short of reviving the kind of espionage apparatus once used against Japanese civilians, noting that the legislation does not itself create significant new powers of intelligence collection or counterintelligence. A Japan Times commentary similarly pushed back on regional criticism, arguing the changes amount to a decades-overdue fix to a fragmented system rather than the birth of a “Japanese CIA.”