意外

一 |     

    People hold placards reading "No war" and "Stop constitutional revision, military expansion" during a rally in Tokyo, Japan on May 3, 2026.
As an old saying in both Chinese and Japanese goes, "Bad deeds travel a thousand miles." This means that wrongdoing will eventually spread far and wide, becoming known to all.
Ignoring strong opposition at home and abroad, the Japanese government has officially inaugurated the "National Intelligence Bureau." Dubbed by some Japanese media outlets and opinion leaders as a postwar institution close to the "Tokko", or Special Higher Police - which targeted critics of the Japanese government ahead of World War II (WWII) - the new bureau has been met with widespread criticism and protests ever since its establishment on July 31.
What exactly is Japan's "National Intelligence Bureau"? What is the background of its organizational structure and leadership? What impact could its deep entanglement with US intelligence agencies have on regional security? And what strategic ambitions of the Japanese authorities lie behind its creation? In this story, the Global Times takes a closer look at this newly established intelligence agency and examines the dangerous attempts by Japan's right-wing forces to break free from the postwar order and revive a militarist path.
Striking a historical nerve
On July 31, Japan held the first meeting of its new National Intelligence Council chaired by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and launched its secretariat, the National Intelligence Bureau, reported The Mainichi on the same day.
Although the full details have not been made public, the meeting was believed to have confirmed plans to draw up the first-ever strategy to guide intelligence-gathering and analysis activities, as well as to move forward with consideration of a "anti-espionage" bill aimed at countering covert operations by foreign powers, NHK reported the same day. 
The bureau's launch date has struck a historical nerve in some Asian countries, victims of Japanese aggression during WWII. 
Hiroshi Onishi, vice president of the Japan-China Friendship Association, told the Global Times that Japan's decision to establish the body on July 31 is a date that evokes memories of the notorious Unit 731 bacterial warfare squad of imperialist Japan, and is bound to remind people in China and other Asian countries of that dark history.
The Japanese government should consider how this timing may be perceived by people in other countries, especially in China, he said. 
Under a law to establish the National Intelligence Council, passed by the Japanese Diet in May 2026, Japan is building a new intelligence system centered on its National Intelligence Bureau. 
According to a July 31 story by the Xinhua News Agency, the bureau, which integrates intelligence functions from Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice and the National Police Agency, had been described by the public as the "command center" of intelligence operations.
Why did Japan establish this bureau? Establishing this bureau enables the Japanese government to "make sound decisions based on higher-quality, timely information amid today's complex and challenging international environment," The Japan Times quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara as saying on July 31. 
However, to some Chinese scholars in Japanese studies, explanations like this are little more than a cover for the current right-wing Takaichi administration's real agenda.
"Of course, the Japanese authorities need to put forward some seemingly plausible justification; otherwise, they would have no way to explain it to the public," Da Zhigang, a research fellow at the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies of the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
Da said that the Takaichi administration's push for the reform of the intelligence system is directly tied to Japan's military expansion, its drive to strengthen military capabilities and constitutional revision. 
"The real purpose is still institutional expansion - to make the intelligence system more compatible with, and better serve, the series of military expansion and geopolitical strategies Japan is now advancing," he noted.
Adding uncertainty
The National Intelligence Bureau largely inherits the roughly 730 personnel and functions of its predecessor, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, with around 30 new posts being authorized to be added, according to The Japan Times.
The bureau reports directly to the Japanese prime minister, and has centralized intelligence functions that were previously dispersed across multiple ministries and agencies under Japan's cabinet office, which overturns Japan's postwar decentralized intelligence architecture, Da said. 
"Compared with the system of mutual checks and constraints designed under Japan's pacifist constitution after the WWII, the country's current intelligence apparatus is highly centralized," Da told the Global Times. "Constraints that were once built into the Japanese constitution, which has set forth pacifism, now seem to be gone."
If the bureau is a new engine of centralization in Japan's intelligence system, then Kazuya Hara can be called the engine's first operator. According to media reports, Hara, the bureau's first director, joined Japan's National Police Agency in 1990, and had also served at Japan's embassies in Russia and the US. In 2019, Hara became executive secretary to the then prime minister Shinzo Abe, and in 2023 he began serving as director of Japan's cabinet intelligence. 
    A visitor tours a specialized exhibition about the trial of Japanese war criminals by New China, at the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, which was held in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on July 1, 2026. Photos: VCG
In May, shortly after the legislation was passed, Hara reportedly made a special trip to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters. FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that Japan's initiative would "greatly enhance our shared partnership," and said he looks "forward to fully supporting them and working with them on cybersecurity, counterintelligence, espionage and counterterrorism to strengthen our cooperation," Japan's Jiji Press reported on May 8.
Moreover, according to a July 13 report by The New York Times, during the process of setting up the bureau, Japan had "privately approached partners such as the United States, Australia and Germany in recent months for advice on technology, staffing and priorities." 
"Intelligence officials from the United States, Japan's main security ally, have offered input on cyberdefense systems and methods of countering industrial espionage, according to two people familiar with the conversations," the NYT report said.
A tightly bound intelligence alliance is adding multiple layers of uncertainty to the security landscape in Northeast Asia. Da said that the bureau's establishment would amplify Japan's intelligence-driven disruptive power in bilateral and multilateral geopolitical interactions in Northeast Asia, while its deep entanglement with intelligence networks beyond the region could further intensify the compound shock to the regional security order.
"For countries around Northeast Asia, the costs of social contact and other forms of interaction will rise," Da said.
The establishment and operational launch of a brand-new intelligence agency means that Japan is already making advance intelligence preparations for a potential war, Lü Yaodong, a research fellow from the Institute of Japanese Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
East Asian countries, as well as all peace-loving forces around the world committed to safeguarding global peace, must remain highly vigilant, Lü said.
Accelerating Japan's remilitarization agenda
China has a time-honored saying: "Those who persist in wrongdoing will bring destruction upon themselves." 
Less than two weeks after its launch, Japan's National Intelligence Bureau has already come under broad criticism. What it has triggered is not only questions about the functions of a new agency, but also deep concern over whether Japan is drifting away from its postwar path of peace and back toward militarism.
One major criticism is that the intelligence power in Japan has become overly concentrated, while checks and balances remain inadequate. The law to create the National Intelligence Council, which governs the bureau, "does not include any mechanism to oversee the activities of intelligence agencies" despite concerns, as reported in a May 29 editorial piece by The Mainichi.
For many people in Japan, another concern is that the new intelligence agency lacks institutional safeguards to protect citizens' rights. On May 27, the day Japan's Upper House passed the law, large numbers of people reportedly spontaneously gathered outside Japan's Diet, holding banners reading "Stop revising the constitution and expanding the military" and "Oppose the National Intelligence Bureau bill that will monitor citizens." 
It is completely unfeasible for Japan to set up an intelligence agency detached from corresponding restraints, said Makoto Ito, a Japanese lawyer and the director of the Japan Institute of Constitutional Law. 
If the bureau and related measures such as the proposed anti-espionage law are allowed to push forward on their own, outside a democratic oversight framework, the risks will only be magnified, Ito told the Global Times.
More concerning still, some observers pointed out that the establishment of the National Intelligence Bureau is not an isolated move, but a key link in the Takaichi administration's systematic effort to break free from the postwar order and push Japan further down a path of rearmament.
Japan is strengthening intelligence centralization through the creation of the bureau, while also accelerating the deployment of Tomahawk cruise missiles and conducting live-fire drills, said Lü. This indicates that Japan is advancing its military expansion strategy on two fronts at once: intelligence gathering and actual combat strike capability. He criticized these moves as not only a serious shock to the regional security landscape, but also an open challenge to the international order of peace.
The Takaichi administration is devoting energy to intelligence-system reform precisely when the public urgently needs relief from persistent inflation and a rising cost of living, and that these reforms directly serve Japan's military expansion, force buildup, constitutional revision and even efforts to undermine the country's Three Non-Nuclear Principles, said Da. 
"In fact, this also shows that Japan's right wing has now reached a stage where it simply no longer cares about people's livelihoods," he said.
The establishment of Japan's National Intelligence Bureau is "another negative development in Japan's domestic and international policies on security," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on July 31, the bureau's launch date. 
"For some time, Japan has been accelerating its remilitarization agenda under the pretext of national security and external threat. Such moves have put the regional peace and stability at risk and drawn widespread concern across the international community," Mao warned. 
"Those running the Japanese government need to learn lessons from history and act prudently," she noted.
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在与其他人交流后，他发现其他数码 UP 主也注意到了类似的情况。出现问题的手机覆盖范围很广，从古早的三星 Galaxy S4 ，一直到相当近的 Galaxy S20 FE 甚至是Z Fold 2 ，都有出现问题。他说，自己在公开曝光这件事之前，已经等了 50 天，然而三星一直没有给出回复。
一直到视频发出半个月后，三星终于给出了啥也没给的回复：得知这件事的托尼立刻进行了一次身边统计学，结果出人意料，又在情理之中：情理之中的是，整个编辑部能找到的三星手机加起来少于 5 部。你说这图和三星无关？无关就对了……▼
而意料之外的是，在抽屉里长期储存的那些三星手机，都没有出现那位 UP 主描述中的鼓包现象。

二 | 不过上微博转了一圈，托尼发现在事件发酵前， 就已经有不少中国用户反映三星的电池容易鼓包了：


由于这次“ 电池门 ”涉及到的型号和生产时间跨度太大，托尼认为这事不太像是品控或电池厂商问题，更有可能是三星的某种系统性失误。而这个失误， 最先让人想到的就是三星的电池选型。在 Note7 成为哑火手雷之后，三星痛定思痛，决定改用不太可能起火的凝胶电池。在此之前，市场上只有索尼采用这种电池。大多数手机电池用的是 液态电解质的 锂离子电池，也就是说，电池内部有很多流动性不错的有机液体。这种有机溶液一旦碰到高温（ 比如电池短路 ）或水蒸气就会分解，产生大量气体。一旦电池包装被气体吹爆或是被外部刺穿，电解液就会流出电池，与空气大面积接触，造成起火。而凝胶电池的电解质类似于果冻，即使包装破裂，也不会有电解液流出，大大降低了起火几率。与一般锂离子电池相比，凝胶电池更安全，而且充放电时对电极的损耗更小，容量衰减慢。但凝胶电池生产工艺复杂，价格高；能量密度低，而且电池内阻大。

三 | 这就导致凝胶电池既贵，容量又小，充电还慢，属于是完美地反向切中手机的续航痛点。因此，没有产品大“ 爆 ”过的手机厂商，一般不会选择凝胶电池。三星延续至今的 25W “ 快 ”充估计就有电池的因素 ▼
当然，凝胶电池作为一种三星特色，最容易让人怀疑与这次三星独占的“ 电池门 ”有关，但也不是三星电池鼓包的唯一可能原因。毕竟这次爆出的鼓包手机并不全都使用了凝胶电池，比如较早发布的三星 Galaxy S4 和 S7 就是一般的锂离子电池。
因此托尼同样怀疑，三星在电池管理方面有缺陷。这可能导致三星手机在长期关机的情况下，电池快速进入过放状态。现代手机关机后，主板上的某些元件可能仍然在工作。

四 | 比如大多数手机都支持的关机闹钟和定时关机，就需要记录时间的芯片不断电。
但如果三星的电池管理方案，不会在电池电量低的情况下完全切断主板电源，就会造成过度放电。

五 | 过放会对电池造成相当严重的损伤。其中一个表现就是电解质在电极上分解，产生大量气体，进而导致鼓包。

六 |
当然，相比过度充电或电池内部短路造成的损伤，过放不太可能造成燃烧和爆炸，因为过放状态的电池，能量已经基本耗尽了。但无论是什么原因，鼓包的电池都不该重新充电，它的内部结构可能已经损坏，充电时说不定就会给你来一下狠的。这次三星电池门，从 Mrwhosetheboss 首次报告到现在已经过去两个半个月了，但三星依然没有给出一个有用的答复。

七 | 虽说电池鼓包并不罕见，但让一群数码大 V 不得不公开质疑产品来为自己要个结果，三星这次无论是产品还是公关，都有不小的问题。还好这次电池不会突然烧起来，不然三星又要挨上一棒了。