Japan is actively expressing its intention to join the “Five Eyes Alliance” formed by the United States and other five countries for intelligence sharing. According to the Japanese ambassador to Australia, Nobuhiro Yamayama, Japan is making progress in joining the “Five Eyes Alliance” and “I would like to see this idea come to fruition in the near future.”
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Shingo Yamagami, who was the head of the intelligence department of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview on the 21st that Japan’s intelligence circle is establishing cooperative relations with Australia and other countries in the “Five Eyes”, “I want to see this idea come true in the near future”, and he said he was very optimistic about it.
Shingo Yamagami also stressed that Japan shares universal values and strategic interests with the members of the Five Eyes, both are democracies and see the Chinese Communist Party as a strategic adversary, and that “Japanese politicians and officials are increasingly aware of its importance.
In response, Rory Medcalf, dean of the National Security Institute at the Australian National University, said “Japan is the best candidate in terms of interests and strength” and that “if there is a country that knows the CCP very well, it is Japan. While the composition of the Five Eyes coalition has been seen as immutable, it is important to keep up with the times,” Medcalf said.
Medcalf also said that Japan’s extensive intelligence gathering and assessment capabilities would be a useful addition to the Five Eyes alliance. But for Japan, compliance with the Five Eyes’ rules and agreements will be a “major institutional challenge.
Taro Kono, then Japan’s defense minister, said in an interview with the Nikkei Asian Review back in August 2020 that Japan was willing to expand its intelligence-sharing cooperation with the Five Eyes Alliance because “as the defense minister in charge of Japan’s security, I have to say that I would like to be a member of the Five Eyes Alliance. I have to say that I am extremely concerned about China’s activities in the East and South China Seas.”
After condemning the Communist Party’s actions in the East China Sea and South China Sea, as well as on the Sino-Indian border and in Hong Kong, he noted that the consensus of the international community is that the Communist Party should “pay a high price” for these actions. He also said that Japan and the Five Eyes Alliance “are countries that share common values, and Japan can almost be called the ‘sixth eye'”.
The Six-Eyed Alliance’s proposal was welcomed by dignitaries from the Five Eyes Alliance countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The analysis points out that in addition to intelligence, the Five Eyes Alliance plans to expand cooperation in military and strategic economic areas in the face of the Chinese Communist Party’s challenge, and share strategic reserves of key minerals, including rare earths, and medical supplies, in order to reduce dependence on Beijing, which makes Japan’s importance in the Five Eyes Alliance even more prominent.
The Five Eyes Alliance began with a summit between U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill aboard the battleship HMS Prince of Wales at the beginning of World War II. After the war, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also joined the agreement. The main activity of the Five Eyes is information sharing among member militaries, mainly navies, which contributed to the West’s victory during the East-West Cold War by sharing intelligence information.
But the international environment for Five Eyes has changed dramatically since 1998, when a series of U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed by the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda, prompting Five Eyes to focus on understanding the movements of terrorists hiding in civil society. But Five Eyes’ primary mission remains the exchange of military information.
Last December, Japan reiterated its position to “further strengthen cooperation, including intelligence, with the Five Eyes” and noted that “in recent years, there have been frequent moves to strengthen relations between Japan and the Five Eyes”. As reported earlier in Japan’s DAILY New Wave, there has been progress in information sharing between the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the U.S. Navy, and cooperation between Japan and the Five Eyes member countries has been advancing recently through alerting and monitoring North Korea’s nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches.
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