This analysis exposes China’s long-running intelligence operations targeting Japan’s defense, technology, media, and political sectors. From historical spy cases to honey traps, Aegis data leaks, and covert agents, China systematically seeks technology essential for its national defense. Over 50,000 CCP members in Japan are required to submit intelligence reports, forming a vast and largely invisible information-gathering network. The article reveals the scale and danger of China’s espionage strategy and why it represents a serious threat to Japan and global security.

China believes that technology transfer from Japan is indispensable for its national defense, and it has been approaching individuals involved in advanced technology and defense-related industries to induce such transfers.
June 16, 2024.
The following is from a genuine scholarly article written by Takushi Genkotsu and published in the November 2016 issue of the monthly magazine Voice.
Citizens who only subscribe to newspapers like the Asahi, and watch TV programs produced by their subsidiaries or by NHK, live without knowing any of the facts revealed by his laborious research.
Worse still, many people continue to chant slogans such as “Japan–China friendship.”
Living in Osaka, I personally feel terrified every day, because in just a few short years the number of Chinese people in Osaka has risen to an unusual level.
Every time I go to Umeda on some errand, I encounter a considerable number of Chinese nationals.
A friend of mine, who moves around the city far more frequently than I do, says that each time he thinks, “How can this possibly be safe?”
November 14, 2016.
This morning, I was reading an article in Voice that I had previously left unread, and a friend who had read the magazine earlier said to me:
“Your words are reaching even the editorial board of this publication.”
From the numerous facts recorded in the painstaking research by Takushi Genkotsu beginning on page 92, I will convey the following portion.
These are facts that every Japanese citizen and all people around the world must know.
Preface omitted.
Emphasis in the text is mine.
Espionage operations targeting the Self-Defense Forces.
In 1992, China distributed “Document No. 7 of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee” to all provinces and military regions, instructing them to intensify foreign intelligence collection.
Since then, China has carried out ongoing intelligence activities, with particular focus on collecting information from Japan regarding “politics,” “defense,” “mass media,” “electronics,” “communications,” and “anti-China organizations.”
China believes that technology transfer from Japan is indispensable for its national defense and has been approaching individuals involved in advanced technology and defense-related industries to encourage such transfers.
A well-known early example is the 1976 “Wang Yōzen Incident,” in which Wang Yōzen, a Hong Kong-based trade company manager, was instructed by Chinese intelligence agencies to collect military and industrial technology information in Japan as a condition for continuing trade with China, using several Japanese collaborators to carry out intelligence activities.
Another is the 1987 “Yokota Air Base Sino–Soviet Spy Incident,” in which a China-linked individual who had received Soviet intelligence training and a pro-China group leader, together with Yokota Air Base employees and military commentators, sold U.S. Air Force documents over an eight-year period to the Soviet Union and China.
In recent years as well, espionage has continued.
In 2004, a staff member of the Japanese Consulate-General in Shanghai fell victim to a honey trap at a karaoke club, was pressured to reveal the government ministries of all consulate employees, and, fearing demands to disclose the consulate’s entire information system, committed suicide.
In 2006, a Maritime Self-Defense Force member assigned to the Tsushima Guard Unit, who had fallen for a honey trap at the same karaoke club, took internal information without authorization and made repeated unauthorized trips to China, after which he was investigated and one person committed suicide.
In 2007, blueprints of the Aegis ship system fell into China’s hands.
When police searched the hard drive of a China-born wife of a petty officer—suspected of violating the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act—they discovered Aegis-related information.
Although the Chinese-born wife was deported, she later reentered Japan and went into hiding.
This incident led to the resignation of the then-Chief of Staff of the Maritime Self-Defense Force.
Even since then, Chinese espionage targeting the Self-Defense Forces has continued, with numerous cases including “Information Leakage Suspicions at the Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Headquarters” (2013) and the “Defense Academy Student Spy Suspicions” (2014).
During the Great East Japan Earthquake, China sent only 15 rescue personnel, but more than 200 journalists came.
This should be understood as reconnaissance of Self-Defense Force activities.
Chinese operatives target Chinese businessmen in Japan, purchased celebrities, members of groups advocating Japan–China friendship, Japanese involved in trade, and media personnel.
Working without intelligence officers appearing publicly, China advances its operations through Japanese agents and other intermediaries.
Furthermore, Chinese Communist Party members who travel abroad are required by the Ministry of State Security to submit periodic reports on events occurring in their destination countries.
As will be discussed later, there are currently 50,000 Chinese Communist Party members residing in Japan.
This information network is nothing short of a threat.
I personally interviewed Chinese exchange students who are Party members about the contents of their reports.
All of them laughed and said, “We don’t write anything important. We just write something random.”
However, even information that the individuals themselves consider trivial becomes significant when accumulated.
Mere complaints or bragging also reveal internal details of organizations and create opportunities for China to exploit.
Many of the highly talented individuals who enter top companies and top universities are Chinese Communist Party members.
Even if they are only junior employees, the vast and fragmentary information they report is combined like a jigsaw puzzle, resulting in new discoveries.
It is extremely inefficient, but precisely because of that inefficiency, the information-gathering process is not easily recognized either by us or by the contributors themselves.
If it were truly useless, such intelligence practices would have been abolished.
The fact that they continue proves the method’s effectiveness.
Remainder omitted.