A Century of Japanese Intelligence - Part 1

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Swan, Lieutenant Commander W.M. (RAN)
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Naval Historical Review, Naval Intelligence
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The three main tenets of State Shintoism were:

1. The Emperor is divine, and derives his divinity from his great ancestors, etc.

2. The gods have Japan under their special protection, therefore its people, and its very soil, and everything in it, are superior to all others.

3. These attributes place upon Japan a divine mission to bring the whole world under one (Hakko Ichiu) roof, so that all humanity may share the advantages of being ruled by the divine Emperor.

The country’s foreign policy was in the last tenet, and you can see the arrogance and conceit displayed, and the danger to others. Here we come face to face with Japanese intelligence, one of the main instruments of her policy. To learn the intelligence game the wily Japanese turned to Germany and that master of intelligence, Wilhelm Stieber. Stieber, Bismarck’s Intelligence Chief, rates with Napoleon’s Schulmeister and Elizabeth I of England’s Walsingham, as one of the Intelligence greats of all time, and his methods appealed to the Japanese.

So Japanese Intelligence and their Army were modelled on the Germans, as their Navy and House of Lords were on the British. The arch-copyists were at work with a vengeance. They were apt pupils, and Stieber’s vast organisation, with its principle of every snippet of information going into the files, was eagerly adopted. Stieber claimed to have 40,000 agents in France before Germany defeated that country in 1870, and within three decades Japan was to have many times that number in Asia. We shall now see the immense ramifications of Japanese Intelligence from about 1885 down to Pearl Harbour in 1941, in such widely separated places as St. Petersburg and New York, and in such areas as Siberia, Central Asia, China, Manchuria, the Pacific, the East and West Indies, Central America and the USA, with all this activity linked to Japan’s policy.

After absorbing all Stieber’s methods, Japan, while growing as a power, looked around for her first move in her bid for leadership of Asia, which was itself another first step. China and Russia were obvious threats to Japanese expansionism, and could even be such to Japan herself.

For many years the Japanese had viewed with alarm the gradual Russian penetration of Asia, and now the West was growing stronger in China.

The Japanese pushed ahead with their Intelligence on the Asian mainland and even improved on the German methods by forming such secret patriotic societies as the Black Ocean Society, or Cenoysha, the East Asia One-Culture Society, and the important Black Dragon Society founded in 1901 by Ryohei Uchida. Mitsuru Toyama was the founder of Cenoysha in 1887, and hark to his words:

1. We must bring the benefits of our divine Emperor’s rule and our own superior way of life to all the other peoples of the world. It is the will of the gods. It will take a long time and be a hard struggle, for our enemies will resist with all their might. So we must start now and exert every effort to prepare ourselves for battle.

2. First, we must make ourselves strong, rich and powerful. But while doing this we must also be finding out all we can about our enemies.

And later he said: ‘First we must control those enemies nearest us. China is decadent and weak, and will cause no trouble. But Russia is another matter. She recognises the decadence and weakness of China and intends to expand her influence over that foolish country. It is Russia whom we must first subdue, and to do this it is now that we must begin to discover her weaknesses.’

‘Now’ was 1893.

So the secret societies and other bodies in Japan poured their dedicated agents into the Asian mainland, into Korea, Manchuria, China Proper, Sinkiang, Russian Central Asia, Siberia, Tibet, Burma and India, and even into European Russia. Emerging the victor in a 9-months war with China in 1894-95, Japan concentrated her full effort on Russia, and that great sprawling mass became heavily infiltrated with her agents, from Vladivostock to Odessa, and up to St. Petersburg. And these agents in the field were bound by tight security.

Listen to an admission oath to the Black Ocean Society in 1894: ‘I swear by the Sun- Goddess, by our divine Emperor, who is the High Priest of the grand shrine of Ise, by my ancestors, by Mt. Fujiyama the sacred, by all the rivers and seas, by all the storms and floods, that I here and now dedicate myself to the service of the Emperor and my country, without seeking personal reward except the merit I shall lay up for me in heaven. And I solemnly swear that I will never divulge to any living soul, except those in authority over me (whom I will obey though they order me to kill myself), anything that the Society may teach or show me, or anything which I shall learn or discover in any place where I may be sent or find myself. If I break this oath, may my ancestors disown me and may I pass eternity in Hell’.

You will note in Toyama’s words, and in this oath of his Society, the strong influence of State Shintoism.

Originally printed in the Naval Historical Review - September 1974 Edition

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