JAPANESE BEGIN DEBATE ON BILL TO OUTLAW SPYING ON GOVERNMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100320003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 14, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 21, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100320003-6 ;TAT
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Japanese begin debate on bill to outlaw spying on government
By Anthony Barbieri Jr.
Tokyo Bureau of The Sun
TOKYO - With both the United
States and Western Europe gripped
by spy fever, Japan is about to em-
bark on a national debate of its own
over whether espionage should at
long last be made illegal.
Spying against the government
has not been against the law in Ja-
pan since the end of World War II, a
state of affairs that has doubtless
contributed to Japan's international
reputation as a "paradise for spies."
"The situation with respect to
protecting state secrets makes my
blood run cold," Prime Minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone told the Diet, or
parliament, last week.
. His Liberal Democratic party is
expected to make a major effort to
enact Japan's first postwar anti-es-
pionage law this fall. But the LDP is
facing stiff opposition from an un-
likely coalition encompassing Com-
munists, Socialists, civil libertari-
ans, the country's newspaper
publishers and broadcasters, and
the bar association.
All say they fear the potential for
abuse of an espionage law: tPat ma.,
terial that is merely politically em-
barrassing will be classified alopgj
with legitimate state secrets, that I
the press will be muzzled and that
civil liberties will be violated.
The more fearful also say they
see a return to the obsessive secrecy
and unchecked power of the prewar,
ultra-nationalist military regime,
which used the dreaded Kempeltal
(military police) and Tokko (thought
police) to jail thousands of political
opponents under espionage laws.
More to the point, the debate goes
to the heart of what has become the
major issue In Japanese politics: the
development of what Mr. Nakasone
calls a "healthy nationalism" and
what his opponents call a revival of
militarism in a country whose power
in the world Is growing even as it
struggles to deal with its past.
In a current special session of the
Diet. virtually all the major issues
will be showcased. Besides the spy
bill, the Diet Is expected to tie itself
up in debate over Mr. Nakasone's
proposed Increases In the defense
budget, his visit in August to a
Tokyo shrine to pay honor to the
nation's war dead, and a decision by
the government to encourage the
singing of the national anthem and
display of the Rising Sun flag in the
schools.
"Ail this clearly shows Naka-
sone's wish to return to the old Ja-
pan," said Koji Tabata, of the Japan
Socialist Party,
Because Japan's Constitution,
imposed by the United States, pro-
hibits it from maintaining offensive
military capacity and commits the
government to a pacifist foreign poli-
cy, the nation's anti-espionage laws
were stricken from the books during
the U.S. occupation in the late
1940s.
There are laws banning spying
against U.S. forces stationed here,
and a law prohibiting members of
the nation's armed forces (called the
Self-Defense Forces) from disclosing
confidential information (the maxi-
mum penalty is two years in jail) but
no law to prohibit Japanese from
spying against their government and
selling the information to whomever
they please.
"Because It's not illegal, the best
the police can do is try to get them
for some other violation, like speed-
ing," said Kiyoshi Mori. chairman of
the LDP's Security Affairs Commit-
tee.
Mr. Mori argues that the lack of a
spy law and Japan's growing mili-
tary capability, its proficiency in
high technology, its ability to keep
an eye on the Soviet Union's Far
East fleet and air forces, its proxim-
ity to North and South Korea, and
the presence of strategically impor-
tant U.S. bases here have all com-
bined to make Japan an espionage
center to rival Berlin.
"The number of spies is increas
ing, especially since the Soviet
Union found that it can get secrets
on the United States and China
here." he said. "And from what I un-
derstand, the U.S. is sending a lot of
agents here to try to keep its secrets
from the Soviets."
It was Stanislav Levchenko, a So-
viet "journalist" based in Tokyo from
1975 to 1979, who coined the term
'aradise for spies" after he defected
to the West and disclosed that he
was really a KGB major who had
recruited some 200 Japanese busi-
nessmen, politicians, journalists and
students to spy for the Soviet Union.
But the classic examples are the
repo-sen," or spy fishermen, on
northern Hokkaido island who for
years have been suspected of giving
the Soviets information on U.S. and
Japanese naval activities in return
for being allowed to fish in waters
claimed by the Soviet Union, and of
giving the Japanese authorities simi-
lar information about the nearby
Russians.
"Why not?" asks Mr. Mori. if It Is
not illegal, then It Is their right as
citizens of Japan."
The LDP bill is intended to stop
that. It would protect a long list of
military and diplomatic secrets from
disclosure by Japanese citizens, and
would in extreme cases make spying
punishable by death.
The bill's opponents contend that
if the government really were seri-
ous about catching spies, the bill
would have made industrial espio-
nage, considered to be the main tar-
get of the Soviets In Japan, a crime
as well.
But as is often the case in Japan.
the real issue seems to be symbolic.
"There can be no such thing as a
military secret because we have
abandoned armies and we have
abandoned war," said the JSP's Mr.
Tabata. "It's stupid to think that se-
crets can be kept in today's world
anyway."
Mr. Mori counters that a Japan
that doesn't try to keep its secrets is
a Japan that will forever see itself in
the role as merely a purveyor of color
televisions and automobiles.
"Japan used to be so weak; we
had no secrets." he said. "Now that
we are becoming stronger, we have
secrets."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/14: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100320003-6