The Ministry of State Security is China’s main civilian intelligence agency, answerable to both China’s State Council – the chief administrative authority of the Chinese government – and the CCP Politburo Standing Committee.
Formed in 1983, it is responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, as well as domestic surveillance and intelligence for national security. It’s often looked upon as a hybrid organization, in effect, a cross between the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States. According to Peter Mattis, fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, the MSS “is not unlike an amalgam of [the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency] and [the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation].”
Under China’s National Intelligence Law enacted in 2017, the MSS – along with other intelligence authorities – has broad powers for conducting a wide-range of espionage activities – within China and overseas – in monitoring and investigating foreign and domestic individuals and entities. Specifically, MSS conducts a variety of intelligence collection operations, such as human intelligence (HUMINT) and cyber operations.
MSS generally keeps a low-profile – there is no official, public facing website – and is generally not as well-known when compared to the likes of the CIA or MI6. The Chinese government officially lists MSS’ headquarters as being shared with the Ministry of Public Security adjacent to Tiananmen Square. MSS, however, found itself thrust into the global spotlight in recent years as political and trade tensions between the U.S. and China have become quite tense. In 2018, two of MSS’ alleged assets were publicly named in a sweeping U.S. indictment involving hacking on a global scale.
After a Huawei Technologies Co. executive was arrested in Canada on a U.S. extradition request, it was MSS agents who abruptly detained two Canadians in China, sparking a diplomatic feud. (Huawei has long been suspected of developing and selling telecom equipment capable of giving the Chinese a back door to spy on U.S. networks, a charge it vehemently denies. In 2019, the UK’s Telegraph reported that “Huawei staff have admitted to having worked with Chinese intelligence agencies in a 'mass trove' of employment records leaked online…”, thus, a “…far closer links between the telecommunications company and military-backed cyber agencies than previously thought.”
The MSS made headlines in 2020 when U.S. officials accused China of sponsoring criminal hackers targeting the very biotech firms around the word working on coronavirus vaccines and treatments. According to the FBI, the Chinese government, in effect, was acting like “an organized criminal syndicate.” In an indictment unsealed in Spokane, Washington, the Justice Department charged two former engineering students with hacking various companies, which was done for profit, but also for the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).
Said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich, “China steals intellectual property and research which bolsters its economy, and then they use that illicit gain as a weapon to silence any country that would dare challenge their illegal actions,” “This type of economic coercion is not what we expect from a trusted world leader. It is what we expect from an organized criminal syndicate.” What’s significant about the indictment is it marks the first time the United States has charged suspected Chinese hackers with not only working to enrich themselves but also with the Chinese government — something prosecutors labeled a “blended threat.”
And in 2020, Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, 67, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, was arrested in August on charges that he conspired with a relative of his who also was a former CIA officer to communicate classified information to intelligence officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Criminal Complaint containing the charge was unsealed this morning.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii Kenji M. Price, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division Alan E. Kohler Jr., and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office Eli S. Miranda made the announcement.
“The trail of Chinese espionage is long and, sadly, strewn with former American intelligence officers who betrayed their colleagues, their country and its liberal democratic values to support an authoritarian communist regime,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “This betrayal is never worth it. Whether immediately, or many years after they thought they got away with it, we will find these traitors and we will bring them to justice. To the Chinese intelligence services, these individuals are expendable. To us, they are sad but urgent reminders of the need to stay vigilant.”
Warnings from the NSA
In late 2020, the National Security Agency (NSA) warned American defense contractors that Chinese hackers were aggressively exploiting known I.T. vulnerabilities to exploit computer networks. While the NSA advisory memo details best practices that defense contractors should take for securing their systems, what’s perhaps more jarring is the opening statement made by the NSA in the advisory memo itself.
It begins by stating that “One of the greatest threats to U.S. National Security Systems (NSS), the U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and Department of Defense (DoD) information networks is Chinese state-sponsored malicious cyber activity. These networks often undergo a full array of tactics and techniques used by Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors to exploit computer networks of interest that hold sensitive intellectual property, economic, political, and military information.”
In recent years, MSS has also been caught trying to infiltrate American military bases. A Chinese National was arrested in 2018 after walking around and taking pictures of the perimeter fence of Naval Air Station Key West. His defense? He was a dishwasher from New Jersey who happened to be lost. In 2019, The New York Times revealed that the U.S. government actually deported two Chinese diplomats who had tried to infiltrate a naval base in Virginia in September of 2019. According to The Times, one of the officials was believed to be an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover, and though the gate guard informed them that they did not have permission to enter the base, they proceeded forward until a firetruck blocked their path.
A Global Reach
But the MSS doesn’t limit their cyberespionage tactics to just American companies. Its reach extends to European countries also, especially Germany as of late, a country well-known for developing superior technologies. The German Baden Wurttemberg (BW) annual report points out that the Chinese have shown special interest in 5,200 German companies that have offices in China, not surprising, considering the province of BW is home to industrial giants such as Daimler AG, Porsche, Robert Bosch and others, and consisting of over 100,000 personnel engaged in Research and Development.
The MSS is divided into Bureaus, each assigned to a division with broad directives, yet specific tasks. Reports vary on the actual number of “Bureaus” in place, with a current list at seventeen.
According to Peter Mattis, a research fellow in China studies, he had this to say in 2007. “Recent developments suggest Beijing may be placing more emphasis on the MSS and other intelligence services to develop more capable foreign intelligence capabilities.” Considering the dramatic uptick in cyber-attacks from China against the United States – and our allies – such a statement has proven quite true.
Chinese President Xi Jinping emphatically stated during an October 2018 speech that “Manufacturing is a key to the real economy, and the core strength of manufacturing is innovation, or the control of core technologies.” By leveraging the immense capabilities of the MSS, China is involved in nothing less than a full-scale assault on Western corporations to steal intellectual property at any cost for meeting their aggressive goals.
A veteran Chinese intelligence officer who defected to the United States years ago told the Washington Times that the MSS spends the vast majority of its time stealing intellectual property overseas, while also repressing political and religious movements at home. Specifically, according to the defector, Mr. Li, the MSS busies itself with the following activities:
Sending spies to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence community, and also on collecting secrets and technology from the United States.
Censoring the Internet to prevent the population from knowing about what occurs outside the country.
Mr. Li also had this to say regarding the MSS with his exclusive Washington Times interview, “The Ministry of State Security is actually not doing things for the security of the country, but rather they spend a lot of effort to control the people, the dissidents, the lower-class Chinese people, and make these people suffer and also make their life miserable.”
Spies Like Us
And how is the MSS finding people to act as spies, or worse, traders to their country? They employ the Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB) for this dirty work. The SSSB is known to be relentless when it comes to casting a wide-net and then going after anybody that they think is a potential candidate. As they see it, if they can convince just 1 in 10, even 1 in a hundred, 1 in a 1,000, then all the better. The SSSB got one such individual, former U.S. intelligence officer Kevin Patrick Mallory, who, in 2019, was sentenced to twenty years in prison for conspiring to pass national defense information to a Chinese intelligence officer. But Mallory wasn’t the first U.S. intelligence official to betray his country, and he won’t be the last.
Said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, “This case is one in an alarming trend of former U.S. intelligence officers being targeted by China and betraying their country and colleagues…our former intelligence officers have no business partnering with the Chinese, or any other adversarial foreign intelligence service.”
China – and the MSS – have become such a thorn in America’s side – and that’s putting it lightly – that then Attorney General William Barr put forth the China Initiative, comprehensive measures to “…identify & prosecute those engaged in economic espionage, trade secret theft, hacking & other economic crimes while protecting critical infrastructure against external threats & combating covert efforts to influence the American public.”
Just how dangerous is the MSS to America? According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, “The Chinese Communist Party’s theft of sensitive information and technology isn’t a rumor or a baseless accusation. It’s very real, and it’s part of a coordinated campaign by the Chinese government, which the China Initiative is helping to disrupt…FBI opens a new China-related counterintelligence case nearly every 10 hours and we’ll continue our aggressive efforts to counter China’s criminal activity.”
As China continues to flex its muscles on the world stage – politically, socially, economically, and militarily – they’ll use every avenue and opportunity they can to advance their cause. One of their core weapons for intelligence gathering is none other than the MSS. Make no mistake, the MSS is a powerful intelligence agency, using all means at their disposal for getting what they want, something the United States – and the rest of the world – should be very concerned about.
Key Points
Mandate: The MSS is primarily tasked with safeguarding China's national security and protecting the country from internal and external threats. Its focus includes monitoring and counteracting espionage activities, detecting and neutralizing subversive and separatist movements, and conducting intelligence operations to gather information on foreign countries.
Structure: The MSS is part of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) comprehensive security apparatus. It operates under the State Council of China, and its operations are coordinated with other security and intelligence agencies within the country.
Functions: The MSS has a wide range of functions, including intelligence collection, counterintelligence, and counterespionage operations. It carries out activities to identify and neutralize threats to national security, investigates and suppresses activities that endanger state power, and conducts surveillance and monitoring of individuals and organizations deemed to be a potential risk to Chinese interests.
Foreign Intelligence: The MSS conducts intelligence operations overseas to gather information on foreign governments, organizations, individuals, and technological advancements. This includes both human intelligence (HUMINT) and technical intelligence (SIGINT) collection.
Domestic Security: The MSS plays a significant role in maintaining domestic security and stability within China. It focuses on monitoring potential threats to the CCP's rule, including dissident groups, religious movements, and ethnic separatist organizations.
Cybersecurity and Counterintelligence: The MSS is actively involved in cyber espionage and cyber warfare activities, targeting foreign entities to gather information and advance Chinese interests. It also has a dedicated focus on counterintelligence, aiming to detect and neutralize foreign intelligence operations within China.
Secrecy and Surveillance: The MSS operates with a high level of secrecy and maintains extensive surveillance capabilities. It employs a range of techniques, including monitoring communications, conducting covert operations, and utilizing advanced technology for intelligence gathering.
International Cooperation: The MSS engages in international intelligence sharing and cooperation with other intelligence agencies, particularly those of countries with which China has friendly relations or shared security interests.
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