[Column] Why doesn’t Japan appear in the documents?

Kim Hyun-ki

The author is the Tokyo bureau chief and rotating correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

There is a suspicious-looking building just 60 meters (66 yards) off the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Minami-Azabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo. Although it bears the name Radio Signals Research Institute, nobody knows exactly what goes on in the concrete structure. No one has ever seen people go in and out of the building. There are only rumors that it collects intelligence from foreign missions around the Azabu neighborhood. While renovating the embassy building in 2013, officials took extra care to prevent wiretapping. The National Intelligence Service dispatched a special team to the building several times to ensure no wiretapping devices went into the wires and networks during its construction process.

Countries spy on one another. It doesn’t matter whether they are friends or foes. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to have assassinated his half-brother Kim Jong-nam and uncle Jang Song-thaek upon learning of their plot to overthrow him from a tip from Zhou Yongkang — a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China — who listened to their conversation through wiretapping. Despite their cozy relationship, Israel was accused of spying on phone conversations of former U.S. President Donald Trump. Uncle Sam also turned out to have wiretapped phone calls of Japan’s senior government officials in 2015, although the two countries are close allies.

Following the latest leak of Pentagon documents suggesting the U.S. spied on South Korea and other allies, the presidential office in Seoul said it would respond after studying past precedents and cases of other countries. The government went in denial and downplayed the latest case just like it did in 2013 when the South Korean embassy in Washington was found to have been tapped. In 1976, the South Korean government even asked the U.S. administration to deny that it had wiretapped the Blue House.

After France and Israel dismissed the documents as “false information” on Monday, Seoul, on the following day, joined the chorus by saying, “Someone fabricated a considerable portion of the documents.” It appears that the intelligence authorities in Seoul and Washington devised a well-coordinated exit strategy to mitigate the controversy. But then, why didn’t Seoul deny the U.S. wiretapping from the beginning and explain exactly what parts were fabricated? No one in the presidential office in Seoul would want to implore or worsen the controversy, as Washington would never admit to its spying. Seoul can use the case in its favor at the upcoming Korea-U.S. summit, but whether it really has the skill or the guts to do so is doubtful.

Spying is an essential part of U.S. intelligence activities. Planting devices in buildings is an ancient method. The U.S. currently operates over a hundred surveillance satellites to keep its eyes and ears all over the world. It did not have to sneak into the presidential office in Yongsan to plant snooping devices while it was being renovated.

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The bigger embarrassment for the U.S. is that it may have the world’s top technology to amass information from around the world, but its control over them was sloppy. Its secret documents were leaked four times over the past 10 years. The latest leaks were posted online several months ago, but the U.S. intelligence authorities recently discovered them. Seoul must raise this issue with Washington.

But strangely, the latest documents on U.S. spying did not include Japan. Tokyo has been going all-out to join the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing arrangement among the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The intelligence-sharing pact represents a genuine alliance of sharing all the information and stopping spying on one another. The U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act in 2021, suggesting expanding the intelligence-sharing pact to the so-called Five Eyes Plus, including South Korea, Japan and Germany. Tokyo may be close to becoming the Sixth Eye.

South Korea must not sit on its hands. Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy national security adviser, said there was no evidence that the U.S. wiretapped its ally with “evil intentions.” But how can there be a good or bad intention behind spying? America won’t likely stop it just because we protest. We spy too.

If so, why not share — and jointly manage — high-level intelligence with the U.S. and the Five Eyes on a higher level rather than striving to find effective ways to block wiretapping? That poses one more challenge on par with the chip front for President Yoon Suk Yeol in the summit with his U.S. counterpart in Washington.