Published on September 24, 2019.
Based on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s report on the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front work, experiences in Soviet-era Moscow, and episodes from Beijing and Dalian, this essay discusses the realities of espionage—contact, recruitment, and control—and the vulnerability of Japanese people abroad.

September 24, 2019.
Real spies and defenseless Japan.
The “telephone call” in the Soviet era…the “telephone call” in the Soviet era…someone who understands Japanese becomes an accomplice…when working overseas, beware if there is a capable person nearby.
The following is from a book that a well-read friend recommended that I subscribe to.
Chapter Four.
Real Spies and Defenseless Japan.
The “Telephone Call” in the Soviet Era.
Kawazoe.
On August 24, 2018, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, USCG, of the U.S. Congress released a report titled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Overseas United Front Work.”
It publicly revealed what United Front work actually does, its reality, and its methods, and sounded the alarm.
According to that report, the process is as follows: in the first stage there is contact, in the second stage there is recruitment, and in the third stage it is brought all the way to manipulation, or control.
Ambassador Mabuchi, when you were still active, I imagine you had various traps set for you.
I am extremely interested, so please tell us about that area.
Mabuchi.
Ten years before the so-called Berlin Wall fell, from 1979, I was posted to Moscow in the Soviet era.
I was there for about two and a half years, and regarding the three methods that Ms. Kawazoe has just mentioned, the Soviet Union at that time was doing the same thing.
First they make contact, then they try to recruit, and after that they control.
In short, it means turning the targeted person into a spy, and that kind of method, that way of doing things, is generally the same in dictatorial states.
Of course, America and Europe also create spies, but the method is a little different.
In the case of the West, it is based on profession and contract.
The method of communist-party regimes is precisely the method of dictatorial regimes, so it is extremely nasty.
Fortunately, I myself did not become a victim, but I was contacted several times.
I may have spoken about this somewhere before, but first, a telephone call would come to my apartment.
Normally, there is no reason for a Soviet person, a Russian, to call me.
After all, it was a so-called police state, and the people were forbidden to have contact with foreigners.
Yet the fact that someone could do that meant that the other party was clearly a spy.
We understood that perfectly well too.
That is the ABC, the basics.
One day, I received a telephone call at home from a young—I think she was young.
I did not meet her, so I do not know, but judging from her voice, laughter—a woman’s voice.
Moreover, in fluent English.
What she said was, “I was acquainted with your predecessor. Therefore, I would like to deepen my friendship with you as well.”
“And actually, I am now at a bar near your apartment. Would it be possible to meet you from now?” she said.
Kawazoe.
That is an easy-to-understand method, laughter.
Mabuchi.
They contacted me with such a primitive, basic, or rather clumsy method, and at the time I became angry.
If they were going to set a trap, I wished they would at least use a slightly more skillful method, laughter.
There was no way I would fall for such a childish method, so I dealt with it casually, but she was persistent and called me every night for about a week.
Since I did not respond to her at all, she seemed to give up eventually.
To be honest, I felt somewhat disappointed, or rather regretful.
I wondered whether they had seen me as the sort of person who would fall into such a trap, and thought they had taken me very lightly.
Their operations were not that skillful.
Kawazoe.
Perhaps diplomats and businessmen from Japan before that had fallen instantly for this method.
For the other side, it may have been, “Huh?” and “Damn it!”
Someone Who Understands Japanese Becomes an Accomplice.
Mabuchi.
This is an incident from about forty years ago, so it should be all right to talk about it, but there actually was a case in which a Japanese embassy staff member fell into an operation.
A private car driven by an embassy staff member caused a traffic accident.
Then the traffic police immediately came and apparently rattled off something and said, “Sign this.”
That embassy staff member was not fluent in Russian, so he could not understand what was going on.
As he was panicking, a Russian who spoke fluent Japanese appeared from nowhere and said, “You must be in trouble. Shall I help you?”
And then he said, “This document says this and that.
So, if you sign here, you will be released without charge,” and because he was told that, the person signed without thinking.
However, the document he had signed was in fact a pledge saying, “I will become a collaborator with the Soviet authorities.”
He had committed a basic mistake.
Kawazoe.
You must not sign a document whose contents you have not even read and do not understand!
That is the most basic of basics.
Mabuchi.
Yes.
The point there is that the person who understood Japanese was in on it.
He approached, put him at ease, and made him sign.
Of course, that embassy staff member was immediately transferred.
After all, it was as though he had declared that he would become a spy for the authorities.
In short, that is the kind of operation they carry out.
It may depend on the target, but Soviet operations were, if anything, rather elementary.
Kawazoe.
They were rough, or simple and forceful, weren’t they?
When Working Overseas, Beware If There Is a Capable Person Nearby.
Mabuchi.
This is not about Japan, but there is a story that the British or French ambassadors to the Soviet Union were caught in such a trap, and there was a case in which the ambassador’s Soviet secretary was a spy for the authorities.
All people of that kind are capable.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell readers this: when you work in a foreign country, if there is a capable person around you, please be careful.
Such people are, in most cases, spies or connected to the authorities.
I worked in several countries other than the Soviet Union as well, and in most cases it was so.
A capable secretary is almost certainly connected to the authorities.
The authorities send in their very best personnel.
Kawazoe.
China is the same.
A sharp mind, an outstanding memory, language ability, and the like become key.
They are also trained, and they never speak about private matters or unnecessary things; they have acquired the technique of behaving as if they were ordinary good people.
Mabuchi.
In a police state like the Soviet Union, even if we wanted to hire local people as local staff, we could not hire them on our own.
We had to ask the authorities to dispatch them.
Of course, all the people who came were spies, laughter.
When I casually asked those people, they said that roughly once every two weeks they were called by the authorities and made to report what had happened.
The maid who was dispatched to our home was the same.
She regularly went to the authorities to report on the internal situation of our home.
Conversely, there were also times when the authorities informed the maid of my schedule.
One night, I had been invited to a dinner party of fellow diplomats, and when I said, “Please take care of my daughter while I am away,” she blurted out, “At the ○× Embassy, isn’t it?”
She was not a well-trained maid.
For the sake of her “honor,” I refrained from pressing her as to why she knew.
That is what a police state is.
Kawazoe.
She must have thought for a moment, “Oh no,” laughter.
The situation is exactly the same in China with maids dispatched to expatriate households.
This was true of Beijing, where I lived in the 1980s, but in the dormitory for foreign students, we were told to leave the doors to our rooms unlocked during the time when we were attending classes.
The official reason was that the cleaners would enter.
Actually, once, I had some kind of premonition and left class to return to my room.
Then, astonishingly, the cleaning lady was lying on my bed and turning the pages of a magazine I had brought from Japan.
I was the one who felt awkward upon witnessing it, or rather, bitter laughter.
Also, at that time there was no e-mail and no mobile phone, so letters from family, friends, and lovers would arrive from Japan, but every single one had been opened.
After they read them, they resealed the envelopes with poor-quality Chinese glue, so one could tell immediately.
To begin with, nothing important was written in them.
Perhaps they were kind enough to think that I was a spy sent in from Japan, laughter.
I also lived in Dalian, and many Japanese businessmen posted there were single, so living in hotels was not unusual.
An acquaintance of the same generation said to me with a bitter smile:
“The shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom keep disappearing.”
“And there are many long women’s hairs lying in the bathroom.”
At the time, in the 1980s, Chinese-made shampoo was all inferior stuff that made the hair stiff, so I suppose that someone, whether a hotel employee or a cleaning person, was diligently washing her hair with the high-quality shampoo and conditioner he had brought from Japan.
Well, this is less about spies than about the privilege, or secret pleasure, of employees working in foreign-affiliated hotels.
But it is eerie, isn’t it?
Mabuchi.
That is very Chinese.
Because it is that kind of state, if you do nothing against the authorities, it is actually safe.
Once, when I got lost while going to the outskirts of Moscow, a policeman approached me from the other side and kindly said, “Your destination is this way,” laughter.
Kawazoe.
He knew exactly where you were going, laughter.
I had the same kind of experience several times in Dalian.
There was a face I often saw around town, and one day, when I stared at him, he too gave up pretending and said, “Where are you going?”
So I answered, “I am going to the place you know,” and he gave a bitter smile.
Mabuchi.
They know.
Everything.
That is the kind of world it is.
This essay will continue.