China: Ministry of State Security (MSS)

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The MSS program for controlling Xinjiang Province has sent thousands into forced labor factories, according to an Australian think tank. (Credit: Australian Strategic Policy Institute )

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Simplified Chinese: 中国：国家安全部

Agency of Social Control

There are few intelligence agencies with a more ambitious agenda than China’s Ministry of State Security. The MSS is responsible for the government’s foreign intelligence and counterintelligence missions, as well as domestic security programs. Despite reports of internal turmoil, the Chinese intelligence has had numerous successes. In the field of economic espionage, the FBI considers China the biggest threat to the United States.

The director of the MSS is Chen Wenqing, appointed by President Xi in 2016.

The Chinese government utilizes a broad approach to intelligence collection, involving both public agencies and private corporations.

The U.S. government has blacklisted Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant that is suspected of creating or allowing security loopholes in its products for the benefit of Chinese intelligence.

Intelligence elements of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have also played a major role in Chinese intelligence via cyber intrusions and human intelligence penetration of the U.S. Department of Defense.

In August 2020, the U.S. Justice Department charged Alexander Ma, a former CIA officer, with spying for the MSS. According to court documents, Ma and a relative conspired with multiple Chinese intelligence officials to communicate classified national defense information over the course of a decade.

In December 2018 U.S. prosecutors charged two MSS agents for their role in cyber-attacks against the United States. The men allegedly hacked into computers of technology companies such Hewlett-Packard and IBM, and government agencies such as NASA and the Department of the Navy. They stole technological secrets and gained access to service providers, enabling large-scale supply chain intrusions, according to U.S. officials.

Human Rights

The MSS has a played a leading role in China’s vast campaign to diminish the identity and influence of the Uighur people in the western province of Xinjiang. The MSS has created systems of surveillance and re-education to achieve the government’s goals of social control and ethnic assimilation.

The MSS also figures in China’s growing role in the affairs of Hong Kong.

In a letter released in June 2020, 86 civil society organizations declared China’s proposed national security law for Hong Kong is a devastating assault on human rights and should be abandoned. “The law may allow agencies such as the Ministry of State Security and the National Security Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security – long known for serious rights violations in China – to operate in Hong Kong,” said the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

The MSS is highly secretive, but a string of defectors have shed some light on its inner workings. In 2017, Guo Wengui, a Chinese real estate tycoon, claimed former MSS vice minister Ma Jian had given him insider information. The incident resulted in the purging of many senior officials within the agency.