The Ministry of State Security (MSS or Guóānbù; ; IPA: ) is the principal civilian intelligence, security and secret police agency of the People's Republic of China, responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and political security of the Chinese Communist Party. One of the largest and most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it is headquartered in the Haidian District of Beijing, with powerful semi-autonomous branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China.
The MSS is active in industrial and cyber espionage, where it has replaced the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as the country's most sophisticated and prolific advanced persistent threat actor. It makes arrests through its own component of the People's Police, and maintains the authority to conduct its own extrajudicial court hearings.
The origins of the MSS begin with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s Central Special Branch, better known as the Teke, which was replaced by the Central Social Affairs Department (SAD) in 1936, which was in turn succeeded by the Central Investigation Department (CID) – the MSS's immediate predecessor – in 1955. In 1983 CID was merged with the counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to create the MSS.
Today the agency is estimated to have at least 110,000 employees, with 10,000 directly attached to MSS headquarters and 100,000 spread across its dozens of provincial branches. The agency's military intelligence counterpart is the PLA Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff Department.
Chen Yixin has been Minister of State Security since October 2022.
Overview
MSS functions as China's intelligence, security and secret police agency. A document from the U.S. Department of Justice described the agency as being like a combination of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Author Clive Hamilton described it as being similar to an amalgamation of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) "with a lot more power and less subject to the constraints of the rule of law."
According to sinologists Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil, who have studied the MSS for many years:
The MSS is a civilian agency, although it controls its own separate police force (the "State Security Police", one of the four components of the People's Police) and includes some People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers among its personnel. The MSS seal contains the emblem of the Chinese Communist Party and the official uniform is dark navy blue, similar to that of the regular People's Police, with the only difference being a badge on the right arm with the Chinese characters "国安" ("State Security").
Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China 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. 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.
History
Central Special Branch (1928–1936) In November 1927, the CCP established its first formal intelligence service, with Zhou Enlai founding the Central Special Branch (, often shortened to Teke; sometimes written Special Services Section (SSS)) to conduct "special operations" work. With Xiang Zhongfa and Gu Shunzhang's assistance, Zhou designed the organization that many Chinese intelligence officers today see as the origins of their enterprise. Establishing secret bases across the Chinese territory, the Teke was composed of four sections led by Gu Shunzhang and Kang Sheng.
1st Section, General Services Section (), was responsible for the protection and safety of CCP headquarters and leaders to include making arrangements for secret meetings. 1st Section was led by Hong Yangsheng (). 2nd Section, Intelligence Section (), was responsible for intelligence and counterintelligence and led by Chen Geng (), later to become the CCP's Vice Minister of National Defense. 3rd Section, Operations Section (), was the infamous "Red Guard" assassination section headed by Gu Shunzhang (顾顺章) whose "dog-beating squads" () were tasked to kill traitors. 4th Section, Radio Communications Section () was headed by Li Qiang (later to become PRC Minister of Foreign Trade) and responsible for communication in the underground spy network.