1. History

2. Mission

3. Activities

4. Agency heads

5. Organization

6. In popular culture and literature

7. See also

8. References

9. External links

The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is the intelligence and security agency of the People's Republic of China (non-military area of interests), responsible for counter-intelligence, foreign intelligence and political security. It is headquartered in Beijing.

Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Law gives the MSS the same authority to arrest or detain people as regular police for crimes involving state security with identical supervision by the procuratorates and the courts.^[2]

The National Intelligence Law of 2017 grants the MSS broad powers to conduct many types of espionage both domestically and abroad, it also gives the MSS the power to administratively detain those who impede or divulge information on intelligence work for up to 15 days.^[3]

The network of state security bureaus and the Ministry of State Security should not be confused with the separate but parallel network of public security bureaus, administered by the Ministry of Public Security.

A document from the U.S. Department of Justice described the agency as being like a combination of the U.S. CIA and FBI.^[4]

History

The precursor of the modern MSS was the Central Department of Social Affairs (CDSA), the primary intelligence organ of the Communist Party of China (CPC) before its accession to power in 1949.^[5] The CDSA operated from the communist base area of Yan'an in Shaanxi Province in northern China during the 1937–45 Second Sino-Japanese War. The CDSA provided the CPC with assessments of the world situation based on news reports and furnished the Communists with intelligence that proved important in the 1946–49 Chinese Civil War against the Nationalist forces.^[6]

The CDSA was thoroughly reorganized in the summer of 1949.^[7] It ceased to exist in name, and some of its most prominent officers were transferred to senior positions in the new Ministry of Public Security of the CCP Central Revolutionary Military Affairs Commission (after the founding of the People's Republic of China renamed the Ministry of Public Security of the Central People's Government). After an extended transition during which segments of the former CDSA came within the purview of the People's Liberation Army, it was fully re-established as an organ directly under the Communist Party Central Committee in 1955, now with the new name Central Investigation Department (CID).^[8]

The MSS was established in 1983 as the result of the merger of the CID and the counter-intelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China. One of its longest-serving chiefs was Jia Chunwang, a native of Beijing and a 1964 graduate of Tsinghua University, who is reportedly an admirer of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served as Minister of State Security from 1985 until March 1998, when the MSS underwent an overhaul and Xu Yongyue was appointed the new head of the organization. Jia was then appointed to the Minister of Public Security post, after a decade of distinguished service as head of the MSS.

In October 2018, the deputy director of the Ministry of State Security, Yanjun Xu, was charged with economic espionage by the United States prosecutors.^[9]

Mission

According to Liu Fuzhi, Secretary-General of the Commission for Politics and Law under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Minister of Public Security, the mission of the MSS is to ensure "the security of the state through effective measures against enemy agents, spies, and counter-revolutionary activities designed to sabotage or overthrow China's socialist system."^[10]

Activities

In March 2009 former MSS operative Li Fengzhi told the Washington Times in an interview that the MSS was engaged in counterintelligence, the collection of secrets and technology from other countries, and repressing internal dissent within China. The internal repression, according to Li, includes efforts against nonofficial Christian churches and the outlawed Falun Gong religious group, plus censoring the Internet to prevent China's population from knowing what is going on outside the country. Li emphasized that MSS's most important mission is, "to control the Chinese people to maintain the rule of the Communist Party".^[11]

Chinese intelligence agents, probably under the control of the MSS, have achieved success in penetrating the U.S. Intelligence Community in the past. In the 1980s, Larry Wu-Tai Chin (Jin Wudai), a translator for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the CIA, was arrested and charged with espionage in the service of the PRC. He had been recruited in 1944 while stationed in China as a U.S. Army officer and went undetected for four decades. More recently, in 2003, Chinese-American Federal Bureau of Investigation source and Republican Party fundraiser Katrina Leung was arrested and accused of being a double agent for both the FBI and the Chinese government, although she was acquitted of charges of copying classified information, and convicted only of tax charges and of lying to the FBI.

In 2012, an executive assistant to MSS vice minister Lu Zhongwei was found to have been passing information to the CIA. Lu Zhongwei was not formally charged, but that incident was said to have infuriated Hu Jintao and led to a tightening on information dissemination and increased counterintelligence activities in Beijing and abroad.^[12]

The Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) of the MSS has repeatedly been involved in both failed and successful attempts to recruit foreign agents. In 2010, the SSSB directed US citizen Glenn Duffie Shriver to apply for a position at the National Clandestine Service of the CIA. In 2017, SSSB case workers were implicated in the recruitment of US Department of State employee Candace Claiborne who was charged with obstruction of justice.^[13]

In 2013, a Chinese driver was employed by Senator Dianne Feinstein who was notified that the driver was being investigated for possible Chinese spying. At some point, he visited China and was recruited by China's MSS. He worked for Senator Feinstein for several years. The FBI concluded the driver hadn't revealed anything of substance. ^[14]

In 2017, the cyberespionage threat group known as Gothic Panda or APT3 was determined to have nation-state level capabilities and to be functioning on behalf of the MSS by researchers.^[15]

Economic espionage has become a prime directive of the MSS and the FBI has estimated that 3,000 companies in the United States are covers for MSS activity.^[16] Companies such as Huawei, China Mobile, and China Unicom have been implicated in MSS intelligence collection activities.^[17][18]

In 2017, Ministry of State Security officials entered the United States on transit visas that did not allow them to conduct official business. During the visit the officials made an attempt to persuade Chinese dissident Guo Wengui to return to China. Guo Wengui accepted the meeting, out of apparent gratitude for one of the officials, named Liu Yanping, having previously assisted in bringing the wife of Guo Wengui to America. However, Guo Wengui recorded the conversations and alerted the FBI. Subsequently, the Chinese officials were confronted by FBI agents in Pennsylvania Station, the Chinese officials initially claimed to be cultural affairs diplomats but ultimately admitted to being security officials. The Chinese officials were given a warning for their activities in New York and were ordered to return to China. Two days later, the officials again visited the apartment of Guo Wengui once more prior to leaving the country. While at the apartment the second time, the officials reportedly ate dumplings made by the wife of Guo Wengui, and Guo Wengui walked them out of the building after again declining their offer of clemency for silence. The FBI was aware of the second visit and agents were prepared to arrest the Chinese security officials at JFK Airport prior to their Air China flight on charges of visa fraud and extortion, but arrests were not made following pressure from the State Department to avoid a diplomatic crisis. The FBI did, however, confiscate the Chinese officials’ phones before the plane took off.^[19]

Agency heads

Agency heads are known as Minister of State Security (MSS), reporting directly to the State Council.^[20]

Organization

The MSS is estimated to have over 100,000 intelligence personnel with at least 50,000 within China, and no less than 40,000 abroad.^[21] The government lists that headquarters as shared with the Ministry of Public Security adjacent to Tianamen Square at 14 Dongchangan Avenue, Dongcheng District, Beijing.^[22] MSS facilities also operate in the northwest of Beijing in an area called Xiyuan next to the Summer Palace in Haidian District. Xiyuan is located south of the MSS affiliated University of International Relations and northeast of the government operated Xijiao Airport. A guarded compound called Yidongyuan is located within the Xiyuan area and offers housing to MSS personnel. The Xiyuan area also contains an elementary school, a hospital, a campus for the Beijing Business Management School, and the Beijing Institute of Electronics Technology and Application. The MSS operates clandestine facilities in the Xiyuan area among the housing and various other institutions.

The MSS is divided into Bureaus, each assigned to a division with a broad directive and each bureau is given a specific task. In November 2016, a MSS associated Weibo account posted an outline of the first 11 Bureaus, however additional Bureaus up to No. 17 have been identified:^[23][24]

Additionally, In 2009, the MSS was reported by a former official to have a Counterterrorism Bureau.^[26]

Other managerial offices have been said to include:^[27]

• General Office
• Legal Department
• Political Department
• Party Committee
• Propaganda Department
• Legislative Affairs Coordination Office
• Veterans Affairs Department
• Xiyuan Management Department

In December 2016, the MSS structure was split into a National Counterintelligence Agency and a National Intelligence Agency, it is unclear from public information what change this reorganization had on MSS Bureaus and Divisions.^[28]

The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) is a large civilian think tank for international issues. Located in Beijing, the Institute is affiliated with the MSS, and overseen by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.^[29][30] CICIR has been identified by Stratfor Global Intelligence as belonging to the No. 8 Bureau of the MSS, and as providing intelligence reports to the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China.^[31] The organization itself does not speak much about its relationship with the Chinese government, however, and Chinese media reports rarely acknowledge the institution's ties with the regime.^[32]

Many MSS personnel are trained at the University of International Relations in Haidian, due north of MSS housing and offices in Xiyuan^[33][34] and at Jiangnan Social University in Suzhou.^[35]

In popular culture and literature

An agent of the MSS, Zheng Lu Peng, is the main antagonist of the espionage hero Cono 7Q in the spy novel Performance Anomalies,^[36][37] by Victor Robert Lee.^[38] Zheng, who is engineering Beijing's takeover of the country of Kazakhstan, comes from [https://books.google.com/books?id=R4xrWxfC_DUC&pg=PT108&lpg=PT108&dq=%22zheng+lu+peng%22&source=bl&ots=YorWMcowmq&sig=D5EB8XPkjrYeNtwWWTlOKWEbWKI&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU1OWm14PUAhVIXRoKHfiiBC4Q6AEIMjAA#v=onepage&q=%22zheng%20lu%20peng%22&f=false a family that was tormented] during the Cultural Revolution, leading to his own traumatized personality.

In the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, Wai Lin, portrayed by Michelle Yeoh, is an MSS agent working together with Bond to stop a crisis that could lead the British and Chinese into war.{{fact|date=October 2017}}

In season three of the Last Ship, MSS agents are the major antagonist of the crew of the USS Nathan James.^[39]

In the television series Mr. Robot, a fictional Minister of State Security is portrayed by BD Wong.{{fact|date=October 2017}}

Chinese spy novel ice is sleepy water(Chinese:《冰是睡着的水》, by Liu Meng) tells the day-life story of a group of MSS agents.

See also

• National Security Commission of the Communist Party of China^[40]
• Ministry of Public Security (China)
• Chinese intelligence activity abroad
• KGB (Soviet equivalent)
• Glenn Duffie Shriver
• Katrina Leung
• Shi Pei Pu
• Ma Jian (politician)

References

External links

• [https://www.12339.gov.cn Ministry of State Security Reporting Platform]
• [https://fas.org/irp/world/china/mss/index.html Ministry of State Security], Intelligence Resource Program, Federation of American Scientists (Last updated since 1997)
• Ministry of State Security at GlobalSecurity.org (Last updated 2007)

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