Govt Considers New Bureau to Strengthen Gathering of Intelligence from Japan and Abroad

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:55 JST, October 24, 2025

The government is leaning toward establishing a new national intelligence bureau that would serve as a command center for the collection and analysis of intelligence from Japan and abroad, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The new bureau would single-handedly consolidate and analyze information collated from government ministries and agencies, with the aim of improving the nation’s ability to deal with the actions of foreign forces that could threaten Japan’s security and national interests.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has instructed Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara to consider the details of such an entity.

Intelligence collection and analysis involves a range of methods including human interactions, the use of satellite imagery and careful selection of details from vast amounts of publicly available information. The nation collects intelligence on the movements of foreign actors that could jeopardize Japan’s security and to determine whether sensitive information is being stolen.

Strengthening the nation’s intelligence collection and analysis capabilities has been one of Takaichi’s personal projects. The prime minister pledged to establish such a bureau while she was campaigning in the Liberal Democratic Party’s recent presidential election. The Japan Innovation Party also supports the creation of such an entity, and the coalition agreement both parties signed Monday contained a plan to establish the bureau.

According to multiple sources, the government plans to form a “national intelligence council” comprising relevant cabinet ministers. The new bureau would be in charge of the council’s secretariat. The government is considering submitting a bill to establish this council during next year’s ordinary Diet session.

Government entities that currently conduct intelligence operations include the Cabinet Secretariat’s Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office; the police’s public security divisions; the Foreign Ministry’s Intelligence and Analysis Service; the Defense Ministry’s Defense Intelligence Headquarters; and the Public Security Intelligence Agency, which is affiliated with the Justice Ministry. Although these bodies provide information when necessary to the National Security Secretariat, a command center for diplomatic and security policies established in 2014, many observers have pointed out that the secretariat’s ability to orchestrate intelligence gathering and collate this information is lacking.

The government plans to position the new bureau – which would be a restructured Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office – on the same level as the National Security Secretariat, and grant the bureau authority to give instructions to government ministries and agencies. The office’s chief, the director of cabinet intelligence, would be upgraded to secretary general of national intelligence, on a par with the secretary general of the secretariat, according to the sources.

Personnel from the National Police Agency, Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, Public Security Intelligence Agency and other bodies would be seconded to the new bureau, which likely will consolidate information from each ministry and agency. The bureau’s chief will be under the direct control of the prime minister and chief cabinet secretary in a move that aims to strengthen intelligence activities led by the Prime Minister’s Office.

In 2015, an organization dedicated to strengthening the nation’s external information-gathering functions by collecting intelligence on international terrorist groups and other threats was set up under the cabinet of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.