Imagine being Japanese, living in Singapore in the nineteen twenties and thirties, suspected by everyone around you of being a spy.

Prior to December 1941, Singapore was the site of a major naval base for the occupying British. As tensions increased between the imperial powers of Japan and Britain, Japanese expatriates living in Singapore became the focus of both governments in the struggle for control and power, resulting in further marginalization, suspicion, and othering from the Singapore authorities.

Based on British police records and Japanese military records of the time, this book explores what it meant to be Japanese in those circumstances, and how people were used – sometimes without their knowledge and consent – as spies and intelligence agents.