A Maritime Self-Defense Force petty officer based in Nagasaki Prefecture took several unauthorized trips to Shanghai to visit a Chinese woman who worked at a local karaoke bar, prompting police to investigate him on suspicion of leaking military information, sources said Wednesday.
Japanese intelligence authorities are interested in the trips because the karaoke bar was once frequented by a Shanghai Consulate official in charge of encrypted communications who committed suicide in 2004 after being blackmailed by Chinese security authorities to provide intelligence information allegedly in exchange for keeping secret his affair with a woman who worked at the same bar.
Nagasaki Prefectural Police are investigating whether the unnamed sailor, who was stationed at the Kamitsushima Guard Post on Tsushima Island, a key chokepoint for ships transiting the area, from April 2004 to last month to monitor vessels, passed on any information to China.