WikiLeaks: NSA spied on Abe and Japanese companies

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, key figures of his former administration and several of Japan’s most powerful companies have been the targets of long-term US spying operations, according to documents published on the WikiLeaks website.

The alleged operations to bug phones and intercept communications date back at least a decade and suggest that the US maintained extensive surveillance of its closest ally in Asia.

That surveillance appears to have allowed the US to gather intelligence from conversations held at the prime minister’s residence in Tokyo, according to the WikiLeaks documents.

One of the documents, which dates from Mr Abe’s first, year-long stint as prime minister in 2007, details his preparations for a visit to Washington in April that year and his expected stance on climate change.

The WikiLeaks website, drawing on secrets stolen by US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, has previously alleged systematic spying by the US on the governments of Brazil, France and Germany.

Revelations that the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been tapped created a frost in US-German ties. One senior adviser to the Japanese cabinet office said that, since the tapping of Ms Merkel’s phone had come to light, “Japan’s top leaders assumed they were being listened to as well”.

The US appears to have used its deep access to the inner workings of Japan’s government and corporations to secretly observe the country’s preparations for other international summits and forums where Japan-US relations might be tested. Trade and climate change issues emerge as a keen area of focus for the US spying agency.

The leaked documents, which WikiLeaks claims to have obtained from the US National Security Agency, include four “top secret” reports and a list of 35 Japanese targets for telephone intercepts. The documents range between 2007 and 2009 — a period that saw Japan shuffle through four prime ministers. The phone intercept targets appear to have been identified from as early as 2003.

As well as the main switchboard for the cabinet office, the target list suggests that the NSA has attempted to intercept the phone calls of staff belonging to Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, the minister of economy trade and industry, senior officials within the finance ministry and the governor of the Bank of Japan.

The list of targets also suggested that the energy divisions of both Mitsui and Mitsubishi were victims of the NSA’s spying operations.

One person close to the Japanese cabinet said that the documents, published as Mr Abe is facing heavy public opposition to security legislation, “could not have come at a worse time”.

The controversial changes being pushed into law by Mr Abe would allow Japan to reinterpret its pacifist constitution, enabling the military to extend its role and join allies such as the US in overseas operations of collective self-defence.

Mr Abe has faced extensive street protests and falling approval ratings as the bills have progressed through parliament. One recurring criticism has been that Tokyo is aligning itself too closely with Washington, and with an ally whose motives cannot always be trusted.

Annotations on one of the WikiLeaks documents indicate that the US shared the information it had harvested on Japan’s preparations for the G8 summit in 2008 with its “five eyes” intelligence partners the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.