Japan's Intelligence Reforms

Hello, welcome to Rusey and London. I'm Philip Schatler Jones and this is Global Security Briefing, a podcast from Rusey's International Security team that provides insights on security developments around the world. In this edition of Global Security Briefing, we're reflecting on how Japan is rebuilding its national intelligence capability and looking for answers to the following main questions. What is being proposed and why now? Why is this important in terms of the history and what are some of the obstacles they may have to overcome? And then what does this reform tell us about how Japan is changing in terms of its self perception or threat perception and what are the implications for Japan's relationships with allies, friendly countries and adversaries? Aiming to address these questions, I'm really pleased to welcome two expert guests to Global Security Briefing. Ken Kutani is a professor of Nehaun University, Japan. He obtained his masters from King's College London and PhD from Kyoto University. He served for 12 years at the National Institute for Defence Studies, the Ministry of Defence in Japan. Perhaps most importantly, Ken was also a visiting research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute from 2008 to 2009. Ken's book, "Japan's Intelligent History" from the former Japanese military to the PSIA, SIRO and the NSC, which was published in Japanese in April, 24, by Chua Kouron Shinchun, is the most up-to-date, authoritative volume on today's subject. So it's a great pleasure to welcome Ken back to Rusey. James D. J. Brown is professor of political science at Temple University, Japan campus. His main areas of expertise are Russian-Japanese relations and international energy politics. James authored the recently published "Crefin the Crab", Russian espionage against Japan from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge, and tells me a follow-up volume bringing the story of Russian espionage on Japan to the present, his forthcoming. So with newspapers running stories about a current Russian spy operation at a Japanese airport, James' insights on the Russian story are going to be extra timely. Ken and James, welcome to Global Security Briefing. Hi, and I see you. Thanks very much. Pleasure to be joining you. Let me begin with a few framing thoughts before we get into the questions. Japan's policy on intelligence makes the news because it forces us to reflect on the extraordinary disjuncture stemming from the Second World War and the way it ended. Up until that point, Japan had been a major player in the international security order, but under the US led occupation, and even after regaining sovereignty in 1952, this government was without the means for conducting a range of functions that would be considered perfectly normal for other countries. And that includes intelligence. Post-war Japan's regional and international security and defense profile is defined by principles that came to be seen as so unchanging as to be permanent. Probably the main principle was "reliance for defense on the Japan-US security relationship." That went together with the Second Principle, which was Japan would limit its legal and material capacity for the use of force, when in a constrained concept of self-defense, which was reactive and limited in striking power. Since this new profile assumed Japan would not involve itself in international conflicts, it did need most of the security capabilities countries required to get by in the world of statecraft, and that includes intelligence. Another factor holding down the Japanese state's capacity was a formally established narrative about how the disaster of World War II came about in the first place. According to this story, Japan's government was captured from the early 1930s by militarists who drove the country towards aggression abroad and repression at home. The lesson of this story was that the best way for Japan to avoid another national disaster would be to make sure the state never again had the capacity to suppress freedom of thought at home or pursue an active security policy overseas. In a paradoxical sense, this meant, in order for Japan to remain safe, the Japanese people must not entrust the state with the full range of instruments needed to promote national security. So now, if the Japanese population is supporting its government to legislate against subversion at home and to enhance its foreign policy with the capability to spy on its enemies abroad, that suggests a radical departure, both in the relationship between the Japanese people and the state and in the scale of Japan's role in the world. So, can if I could turn to you first, could you just give us a summary about what exactly is being proposed right now by way of intelligence through reforms and restructuring? In this May, the Japanese government passed on the National Intelligence Council Establishment Act and based on the act, the government is planning to establish the National Intelligence Council, chaired by the Prime Minister in the National Intelligence Secretariat in the Cabinet Office in this summer. Other additional plans for reforms later in the year or in the period of this Parliament that we should also keep in mind for the future? Yes, after establishing the National Intelligence Council, maybe the government is planning to establish or introduce the Antispeiro and Signal Intelligence Registration and establishing Arbise's Intelligence Service, maybe next year or next next year. James, from the perspective of the history and perhaps some of the recent stories about Russian espionage in Japan, what would you like to add to the novelty of this reform proposal and just give us a sense of what you see as the most significant part of that package? Yes, thanks very much. We've already had a very important change as Kennotes with the introduction of the National Intelligence Council. Things are really going to start to hot up and become really interesting and more controversial when we have the introduction of the second stages, the proposed Anti-Spy Law and then the proposed introduction of external intelligence service. And really this is a very big change for Japan. Japan has been so unusual as such a major sophisticated country and yet lacking so many of the things that you would expect in terms of both counterintelligence and intelligence as well. So I think that we are discussing this at exactly the right time, right at the start of this reform process. And it's so important for Japan because frankly at the moment it is vulnerable. This is being highlighted by the story in the New York Times on the 12th of July with the rather provocative headline of "Is Putin turning Japan into a den of spies?" And my only quibble with the article which highlights an era plot in Ployee, at least that was the cover who was actually identified as a member of Russian military intelligence. My only quibble with the story is that it suggests that this is something new. Whereas in actual fact if you look over the history of 21st century, 20th century, Japan has long been a major target for Russia, for China and for other intelligence actors. I was going to ask you actually from the historical perspective how major development is this. If you go back over the long period that you reviewed in your recent book. Yeah, so I think you touched on some of this in your introductory comments. So you know, Japan has very capable security services. Prior to 1945, one can say, is notorious for the Tokkokinpeitai and with the Nakano School training up the military intelligence officers. So at that time you had the peace preservation law which was introduced in 1925. And as a reaction against that when you have the post-war situation, the democratization of Japan, you have the elimination of much of those security capabilities, which of course it was a good thing. Japan was moving away from being a police state. We shouldn't go too far, however. Some people might assume that after those post-1945 changes, Japan didn't have any counterintelligence or security capabilities. That's not the case. Japan does have counterintelligence capabilities already. To mention just one example, you have the public security bureau within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. When it comes to intelligence, Japan has satellite capabilities through the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center. So it does have these capabilities, but why these reforms are such a big deal now is because there have been so many sort of existing holes. So at the moment there is no explicit anti-spy law, which people might be surprised by, also no dedicated external spy agency. And so given the threats that Japan faces as I referred to earlier on, given the fact that it's becoming more capable as a security actor, it really is important that Japan palm does introduce these reforms. Reforms have been attempted in the past, stands out to me was in the 1980s when you had the Nakasone administration attempting to introduce an anti-spy law that failed and certainly the Takaiichi administration will be hoping they'll have more success on this occasion. Can you publish also on the pre-war and wartime period of Japanese espionage? What elements of that story from the imperial era do you think remain relevant for us here? Yes, the Japanese government established the Cabinet Information Research Bureau in 1952 after the World War II taking the American CIA as a model, but the Bureau was not given any legal mandates as a result the Bureau has been malfunctioned for the past 70 years. And finally, the President of the Prime Minister, Sanae Takaiichi decided to reform the system. The National Intelligence Council establishment Act will give the National Intelligence Secretariat the mandate to consolidate information or intelligence of the Japanese intelligence community consisting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defense, National Police Agency and the Public Security Intelligence Agency. In other words, the Act and Colleges, the community's coordination or integration. Can some people have looked at this reform that's already been enacted, the organization of the institutions at the top level and suggested that the names of the institution may be changed, but a lot of the personnel will remain the same. How much truth do you think there is in that? In some ways, this reform up till now a bit less than meets the eye because a lot of the business of intelligence and its interaction with the decision makers and parliament will go on as normal. Is that right? Yes, the dialectal of the silo has been dominated by the police. And I think the police is just interested in domestic or internal intelligence, not international information or intelligence. That's the problem. So the dialectal silo usually report to the Prime Minister domestic information intelligence. So the Japanese past Prime Minister's gradually lost their interest to overseas intelligence. It's a big fault that the dialect of silo has been dominated by the police bureaus. I mean, what do you think could change there if the director of the new bureau is from a different institution? What difference would that make? Yeah, so we expect the dialectal will be replaced by, for example, the more far staff or MOD staff or PSI staff. So if there is a choice of a director for the new bureau from a different part of the Japanese government, so not from the police, what would be the implications of that? How would that change the way things work? I think except for that National Police Agency, the other ministries or agencies looked at silo is dominated by the police. So they don't try to share intelligence with information with silo. So if the dialectal of silo will be replaced by the other ministries or agencies, they maybe will be willing to share intelligence for information with silo in the future. Yeah, I see. I remember from some of your publications that the stove piping and institutional rivalry has been a feature of Japan's intelligence history. Going back when, for example, the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army were almost in a situation of rivalry and didn't share information. And I think you've written about how that reduced the quality of the intelligence system going to decision making in World War II period, is that right? Yes, we call it super stove pipe during the Second World War. And after the war, maybe, well, it changed to maybe stove pipe now. So going in the right direction. I mean, what were on this topic? I was trying to think about some of the obstacles. And we've mentioned the issue of public opinion and people's concern about intrusion into privacy. We've mentioned the stove piping. Ken, would you like to add any thoughts on what are the main obstacles to implementing this reform and how could the government overcome those? I think it's public opinion. After establishing the new bodies, maybe the government will deliver a Japanese intelligence strategy, which will include anti-spiral administration, signals intelligence registration and establishment of overseas intelligence service, etc., etc. But these reforms will be expected to cause public objection, such as an, for example, imbargent of privacy or surveillance of Japanese decisions, etc., etc. So I think that Prime Minister Tafaiichi should explain to the public why we try to reform the Japanese intelligence. Well, at the moment, in the UK as well, I think we've had the experience of some difficulty legislating for foreign influence and subversion and cases have actually fallen down on weak legislation or problems implementing that in cases where the government hasn't been able to identify the perpetrator as an enemy or a source of threat to the country. So I think that's something that all democracies will struggle with, but perhaps there are some added problems in the case of Japan because of this long period where there hasn't really been law or practices by arms of the state to get involved. I mean, James, you, I think, also had an interest in this dimension, because in this day and age, so much of the intelligence efforts goes on in the digital domain and the cyber domain, because that's where a lot of public information is, that's where a lot of sources are. So would you like to say something about what is the scale of the challenge there for Japan, as also as it relates to these public opinion concerns? Yeah, I mean, it's an enormous challenge. It's a challenge for Japan, but it's a challenge for everyone. So perhaps it's worth reminding ourselves that what's really involved here, that when you are defending against intelligence threats, you're defending against the stealing of secrets, political, but technological as well, and you're also defending against influence operations. And there is a major concern when it comes to the cyber realm, the real worry that election results can be influenced by malign actors, and that is very hard to guard against. So that's very much an area where all democracies are facing challenges and it's a real opportunity for Japan to work with like-minded partners in order to try and address this together. When it comes to the obstacles, I absolutely agree with Ken that the public opinion is an issue here. I think the public opinion is shifting within Japan on security and to an extent on intelligence issues as well, but we'll soon find out to what extent. With this first reform that's already gone through in creating the National Intelligence Council, it's bureaucratic, it's not really something that gets the public's pulse kind of racing, but when we see further steps, the anti-spy law, an external intelligence service, that's where we'll really see the response of the public, whether they're on board with this or not. Added to that, Japan's adversaries are not going to remain quiet. We already have a campaign by both Russia and China to portray Japan's security reforms as neo-militarism, in my view, completely without foundation, but that's the narrative they're pushing. And so as the intelligence reforms go forward, they're going to do the same thing. They're going to say that, look, this is Japan returning to the 1930s, back to its bad old ways, and in that way to try and stir up domestic opposition to these much-needed changes. Okay, how much is public opinion going to be a factor when you consider the current government in Japan since the election of Prime Minister Takahichi has an enormous majority in the lower house and have also managed to get much of their legislation through the upper house. So would you expect to see this playing out in terms of debates in the media or demonstrations or how strong do you think public opposition could be and what parts of the new legislation could they be most worried about? Yes, politically it's not so difficult for Takahichi other administration to establish, for example, anti-spiral or establishment of overseas intelligence service, but she doesn't explain to the public and maybe she doesn't loop that public opinion, so important factor for introducing the new legislations. So I think you need to explain much more to the Japanese public where we establish the unspire or overseas intelligence service. If we assume for the sake of argument that the legislation gets passed, the other obstacle some people have mentioned is the scale of training, capacity building, institution building that will be implied. Because if Japan has got by with quite minimal resources in the past, building up a stronger capability to implement the new laws at home, but also building a completely new foreign intelligence service seems like a very big task. Ken, staying with you for a minute, could you give us an idea how long do you think it will take Japan to build this up? And how does it interact with the other issue you pointed out about stove piping? Because what as soon as you decide how the training is going to happen, then you're making a judgment also about who is in the lead in terms of the new capacity. And that might trigger some of the rivalries or stove piping problems. That tough battle between ministry and agencies will be also expected in the near future, especially between the more far-ministering foreign affairs and national police agency. And they try to take an initiative in establishing the office's intelligence service. So the battle has been continued maybe more than 70 years. So the battle will last from now. So it takes maybe five or ten years, I think. And if the new agency will be established in two or three years, maybe the management face very difficulties in the tough battle between ministries, I think. I understand. So we've mentioned a few of the acronyms describing the main players in Japan's intelligence architecture. So more for the foreign ministry, the police, the national police agency, then there's also the Ministry of Defense, which has historically done a lot of signals intelligence, particularly on the military dimension of that, and then the satellite center in the cabinet office. But there's also one that was briefly mentioned earlier that the public security, information or intelligence agency, PSIA, which is part of Ministry of Justice. Ken, can you give us just a quick account of how is the role of the PSIA distinct from the others? Where does it fit in in terms of its special skills or the scope of what it does? Yes, PSIA is an international security agency like MI5 or British Security Service. But PSIA doesn't have any mandates to correct intelligence or information overseas. That's the problem. So I think the best way is to give the PSIA any mandates to correct intelligence overseas. But police will not agree with the idea. NPA is trying to correct intelligence overseas. And that's why there is a tough battle between Mofa and police agency. And well, the Japanese government tried to use the PSIA. I think that's the point for establishing the future overseas intelligence service, how to use or how to exploit the PSIA as a new intelligence body. Yeah, the other point I've seen mentioned often is the human intelligence, you know, eliciting cooperation from agents, I suppose, to betray their own institutions and give information to Japan. That's a particular skill which probably all of these parts of the government have some experience of some capability in. But is there one which you would say is the strongest on human? Ken? The police and PSIA are now doing such kind of human activities in Japan, but not overseas. So they want to do the human activities in foreign countries. Basically, the Mofa has a mandate to do human activities overseas. But the Mofa doesn't want to do that operation overseas because Mofa's bureau staff think they are diplomats, not intelligence officers. That's the point. So that's why the NPN PSIA helps to human activities overseas. But Mofa is now protesting the police human activities overseas. So there is a serious tough battle between Mofa and the police. Yeah, it's interesting. So I think maybe what we can expect is there will be one kind of struggle in terms of public opinion debate and parliamentary debates reflecting that. And then in the parallel, there will be another kind of struggle among institutions that have already been doing some of this work. And when it comes to the Ministry of Defence doing more and more because the Ministry has grown, they've deployed more defence attaches around the world in past years. So they've also acquired more of the abilities that could be used. Oh yeah. As far as MOD is concerned, MOD tends to coordinate with police and PA. So they welcome joint operations with police agency, but not Mofa. Yeah, I see. James, going to this point that Ken made about how the Prime Minister will need to explain to the public the need for these reforms. You mentioned the reporting about this Russian case at the airport acting under, I think, it's aero-flot cover sending technologies and information to Russia. I suppose to support the war with Ukraine. Do you think we should expect to see more of this reporting now because there may be an effort to bring the subject to light as part of the effort to persuade the public that Japan is a target. And what Russia or other countries are doing in Japan can be harmful to the interests of Japanese people, but maybe also harmful to Japan's own integrity or sovereignty. Yes, I know that when people saw the New York Times story about this sort of den of spies, they thought, "Ah, yes, is this the Japanese government putting out this story in order to demonstrate the need for these intelligence reforms?" That makes logical sense, but actually, I don't think that's probably what's going on here simply because the New York Times doesn't have the best relationship with the LDP, especially during the Arbe era, they regarded the New York Times as essentially an enemy. I think that many close to Takaiichi probably still hold that view. So in that regard, if they were to leak this story to a media organization, I think the New York Times would be the last people they would turn to. So I don't think that sort of stacks up here, but as to whether over the coming weeks and months, we will see more stories within the Japanese media highlighting the scale of the threat. Well, yeah, that does make sense. And there's no shortage of cases that they can point to. I particularly know the Russian example as well, but there are plenty of Chinese cases and cases involving North Korea as well. So that's on the side of public opinion. I wonder if I could add a brief comment to do with the training a situation. So, yeah, clearly, this is going to take a long time. And it's so important because the nature of that training will shape the future of Japan's intelligence experts, and therefore the shape of that community. And one concern I have is to do with retention. If they train up these experts, people with excellent technical skills, language skills, knowledge of the world, are they going to be able to keep them? Because it could well be that they would be able to find better paying jobs in the private sector. So it's not just about training, it's also about retaining. Yeah, thanks. That's I think increasingly the case that all around the world, these skills are in great demand from the commercial world. And Japan won't be immune to that. And then of course you have that on top of the demographic issues and so on in Japan that put pressure on the labor market in general. Ken, how do you think young graduates from Japanese universities will view prospect of a career in the intelligence services? Is that something they will see as exciting and something that they would be proud to embark on? Or is there still a bit of a stigma or a negative sense about spying an intelligence in Japanese society among that generation of young graduates? I think Spiral Intelligence does have a negative image for the younger Japanese denunciations. So my students also ask me how we can join the Japanese spy agency or something like that. So I always recommend them. Yeah, okay, so take a bureaucratic examination and join first three to Moffa Molde or NPA or PSIA. So several of my students actually joined NPA, Molde and also SILO, that's in the past. Policy coaching. And also there are several Japanese spy movies, drama and animation and comics and becoming popular in Japan. That's a good point I think. Yeah, I did hear that there will be a drama coming out shortly depicting activity operations life in PSIA. So I don't know if it will be like our slow horses series in Britain or it will be be more like Spooks, I don't know where it will sit. on the spectrum between glamour and satire, but I'll be very interesting to see what effect these kind of, you know, cultural products have on perception of Japan's spying as well. James, you mentioned about threat perception regarding Russia, but it also seems to me like there could be another issue here where if Japan is more active on foreign espionage, that could make normal, say, business activities in China for Japanese businessmen more of a concern because there's already quite a lot of stories about of people being arrested and detained in China on what's alleged to be espionage. And it's always very difficult to tell how much of that is because the Chinese definition of national security information is very broad and you wonder whether that's another pressure point China uses on Japan's government. But do you think this will be something that really changes the way that Japanese people working abroad might be seen in places like China, but also other countries. People will start to ask themselves whether the person they're talking to might be a Japanese spy. It's a truly interesting point, but in my sense is that actually that wouldn't be that much of a concern because China and Russia also have such extensive level of suspicion already. So as you mentioned, you have these Japanese business people being arrested in China with the assumption that they are working as Japanese spies. I think they're not or at least the majority of them are not, but there is that assumption from the Chinese side. So in a way, what might be happening is that Japan would be going from being falsely accused to being, in a sense, legitimately accused. So I don't think it would lead to a major change in Chinese attitudes towards Japanese business. And when it comes to prioritization, how do you think these different countries we've mentioned would be listed by the bureau now responsible for directing intelligence collection and analysis? I mean, is China at the top of the list or where is Russia, North Korea? How would that be organized? So I think it would match what Japan's security assessment is. So when it comes to Japan's security, there is a clear list with China being placed at the top of that, followed by North Korea and Russia lower down. And so I expect that when it came to intelligence, it would be similar with China very much at the top. Perhaps Russia placed in second place. The reason for that is because when it comes to security, Russia is regarded as a lower concern. Still a concern, but lower. The reason for that is Russia is not going to directly attack Japan. That would be very unlikely. But given the amount of intelligence activity that Russia conducts against Japan, that would place it higher as a concern relative to military security. Yeah, can what do your thoughts on that? Well, recently, Russian-Chinese spies, they tend to correct private companies, tech and information rather than Japanese national security. And this is because Japan introduced the new National Security Act in 2013. So it's very difficult for Russian-Chinese spies to correct Japanese national security for the moment. So they now try to correct easy target. So the Japanese private technical information is not protected by a kind of blow for the moment. So it's becoming easy target for Russia and Chinese spies. Yeah, that's interesting because the more economic security rises up the agenda relative to conventional, say, military security and other types of defense concern. I guess that also affects the way that targets for collection and assessment are prioritized. So you might have more of an economic security threat from one origin and then more of a defense or military threat from another. So Ken, can I ask you how well do you think the Japanese intelligence apparatus is set up now for organizing the collection and assessment of economic security threats? What would have to change there? Yes, the Japanese government just introduced the economic security protection acts two years ago, but just introduced. It's not still in operation. Okay. And with that imply having to bring in other institutions like the Ministry of Trade and Economy and other players who maybe haven't normally been identified among the list of the major actors. Yeah. So a Ministry of Economic and Industry and Trade, they are not interested in security matters or intelligence. So they are not good at security matters. That's the problem. Yeah, that seems like quite a significant factor when quite a lot of the information being targeted is in this area of economic security or industrial development. I mean, I want to move on now to the other topic, which is what these reforms mean for Japan's international relations. So one dimension is the alliance relationship with the US. Maybe Japan will become in some ways more capable of independent conclusions on foreign policy perception or actions. Then for countries like the UK, we have important defense industrial co-development project on the future combat air program. A lot of that information needs to be defended against attempts to steal it. And then there is the other side that the enemies or that countries listed by Japan as the source of espionage threats. What I'd like to do is go to James first and then I'll come to Ken. I mean, just pick from any of those sets of countries, what do you think will be the implications of these reforms? First of all, when it comes to allies and partners, of course, these reforms are much in demand. There has been the perception that in the past, Japan has been rather leaky on occasion and also perhaps not offering that much intelligence in return. Now, if both of those things change, if you have the intelligence shared with Japan remains secret, if you also have Japan having gathered more of its own intelligence and being willing to share that, well, that then makes Japan a much more attractive partner for like-minded countries for intelligent sharing but also for security cooperation as well. Now, there's a lot of interest in this idea of Japan joining the five eyes. So a reminder, this is the intelligent sharing community between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And there's this sort of idea that, ah, you know, can Japan join? I think that's a bit of a distraction. Japan doesn't need to join five eyes in order for it to be an important intelligence partner. So that's on the side of allies and partners. When it comes to adversaries, well, clearly, if these reforms are successful, then that will mean that Japan will no longer be regarded as the spy paradise, spy tengokud, it's sometimes referred to as, and it will be more difficult for Russian, Chinese and other countries' intelligence officers to operate. They would also have to deal with potentially in the future better trained and less restrained Japanese intelligence officers operating overseas. Ken, what do you think about the impact on Japan's international relations? For the past few months, I talk with scholars, diplomats and also intelligence officers of Japan's allies and flandery countries. And they all welcome Japan's intelligence reform. But our bureaucratic system doesn't fit intelligence management. And we also lack a human resource development system. For example, we don't have any intelligence training, school or something like that. So first of all, we need foreign help for staff training system. And after establishing overseas intelligence service, we hope to share intelligence with these flandery countries. Maybe it takes more than 10 years. Yeah. The sense of how long it will take to complete these reforms and the implementation, institutions and customs and so on is one of the big takeaways I got from this conversation. So the complexity of trying to establish a new system on top of a system that already exists and now has to be rearranged and sorted out in terms of who does what and what is the division of labor among the different institutions which have different skills and different perspectives on the national security priority. So thanks for both very much for a really rich conversation. Are there any other issues that you'd like to mention, James, starting with you? Anything else you should leave us with food for thought? Yeah, I mean, there's been a fascinating discussion. There's so much more to say. But one thing that stands out for me is the issue of oversight. I think the oversight of intelligence services is so important in a democracy because obviously they have unusual capabilities. Now Japan is a democracy but it's an unusual democracy. Having been so dominated by a single party, the Democratic Party since 1955, so part of this reforms, a really important part, will be how to manage the oversight to ensure that you have effective intelligence services but those that remain within constraints. And added to that, a related point is to do with the cultural one. It's often said of Japan that there is quite a lot of deference to authority. There's this idea of Sontaku, that is that you anticipate the desires of your political kind of bosses. Is that going to be consistent with effective intelligence services that tell the government not what they want to hear but what they need to hear? And also refusing requests that are illegal. So those are two additional challenges. Can any concluding thoughts for us? Yes, well I think I wanted to say why we need anti-spiral legislation. So the reason why we need anti-spiral is to protect Japanese citizens' offices. If the anti-spiral legislation we realized, we can watch and arrest foreign adversaries pies in Japan. And now there are 10 Japanese citizens are arrested and jailed in China but we do not have any means to release them for the moment. So if we can catch Chinese spice in Japan, we can expect to exchange them with arrested Japanese in China. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean I think this issue of the exchange in espionage, both exchange of information and assessments but also exchange of captured adversaries pies is a very good reminder that up till now, Japan has really left itself short of these advantages. And so it seems that eminently desirable that it needs to correct that disadvantage as soon as possible but clearly a long way to go and a lot of complicated discussions to take place. I think at Rousey we'll look forward to being part of the conversation. This brings us to the end of today's discussion on Japan's intelligence reform. So I'd like to give a big thank you to both of the guests, Professor Ken Kotani, Professor James Brown. I'd also like to thank the Embassy of Japan for their ongoing support to the Indo-Pacific Program. Global security briefing is available on all major podcast platforms. Please like and subscribe for further information about the work of the International Security Studies team at Rousey. Please follow us on Twitter. And find out more about the International Security Studies team's research also on the Rousey website. But for now, it's goodbye from me for Leapshapagones, Rousey and London.