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The Chinese Ministry of State Security, established in 1983, has been gradually enhancing its intelligence collection, counter-terrorism, and cyber security over the years. In recent years, with an annual budget of more than 5 billion yuan, it upgraded its technology established real-time monitoring systems and international intelligence-sharing networks, improving its security response efficiency by over 35%.
Background of the Establishment of the Ministry of State Security
The origins of the Ministry of State Security of China date back to the early 1980s, at which time China was in its early stages of reform and opening up. The country had to enhance intelligence collection and security to cope with an increasingly complex international environment. In 1983, with the backing of the Chinese government, the Ministry of State Security was officially established to protect national security and stability. The official intelligence budget when it was established was around 100 million yuan; at that time, that would amount to an enormous investment, which proved just how seriously the country approached security.
The responsibility of the Ministry of State Security encompasses the following areas: intelligence collection, counter-espionage, and counter-terrorism. The main background to its establishment was the tense global Cold War environment, which made it urgent for China to establish a professional intelligence system so as to ensure national security. During the Cold War, international espionage activities began to surge, and countries all over the world increased their investments in intelligence departments. The annual budget of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency at that time reached several billion U.S. dollars, which, to some extent, quickened China’s pace of establishing its national security agency.
Intelligence agencies in China do not work only for external threats. Even before the establishment of the Ministry of State Security in 1979, China experienced some internal security incidents, which revealed intelligence system loopholes at that time. In the meantime, the establishment of the Ministry of State Security is by no means an act only for strategic arrangement but an action to fill up the existing security gap. The establishment of the agency has marked an important step for China’s national security management to bring intelligence collection and counter-espionage work into a formalized track.
In practice, the Ministry of State Security quickly formed a strict intelligence network, with the establishment of several professional departments for intelligence collection and analysis. It has more than 20 branch agencies distributed across the country; every branch is responsible for different tasks: technology intelligence, overseas intelligence, and economic intelligence are all parts of ensuring comprehensiveness in security work. In 1985, for the first time, the Ministry of State Security announced to the public that a big espionage case had been successfully detected. This event drew great public attention and was considered a milestone in the effective functioning of the Ministry of State Security.
Early Development Stage
In the first couple of years after its establishment, the Ministry of State Security rapidly established a highly professionalized intelligence collection and analysis system, particularly driven by the tense Cold War situation. By 1985, the annual budget of the Ministry of State Security had reached about 200 million yuan, further enhancing intelligence technology to improve the efficiency of intelligence analysis by about 30%. It was mostly troubled by counter-espionage work and the assurance of internal security, with their workload rapidly increasing and thus forcing the ministry to expand by about 50% in just a few years.
The international context of the Cold War actually focused early work of the Ministry of State Security on external prevention. Major powers like the United States and the Soviet Union frequently conducted espionage activities in the Asia-Pacific region, targeting intelligence gathering on China. In order to cope with the external threat, the Ministry of State Security established, in 1987, several special departments that were responsible for counter-espionage operations and intelligence analysis, which especially enhanced the protection of information in the fields of diplomacy, economy, and military affairs. These measures enabled the Ministry of State Security to reap very worthy results in counter-espionage from the very beginning.
At that period, intelligence work was mainly dependent on human resources and traditional observation. The Ministry of State Security set up Intelligence officers at embassies, government agencies, and research institutions. The number of intelligence officers continued to increase year by year to almost 3,000 in 1990. Although this sort of intelligence collection was expensive, it was highly effective in light of the given conditions. The efforts of the ministry disclosed a lot of espionage cases: some even became the public focus of discussion, thus furthering the deterrent power of the Ministry of State Security.
The Ministry of State Security also paid extra attention to the “confidentiality” function of information, adopting many methods of encryption to protect important information in its transmission and storage. At that time, such encryption technology could be considered advanced, although the speed was relatively slow, it well-protected sensitive information. Equipped by the Ministry of State Security, over 500 cryptographic machines for dedicated uses had been equipped by 1992, largely enhancing the confidentiality of information transmission and gradually raising the overall efficiency of the national security system.
The Ministry of State Security attached great importance to the training of professional personnel in the early establishment period. It invested nearly 50 million yuan each year in the training and education of intelligence personnel. The training contents included intelligence analysis, code-breaking, and on-site investigation; the curriculum kept updating in order to adapt to changes in the international situation. In 1989, for the first time, the Ministry of State Security invited overseas security experts to participate in course design, ensuring that intelligence personnel had an international perspective to handle the complex challenges in the global intelligence field. Indeed, these early investments proved effective.
Technological Advancements
The technological upgrade of the Ministry of State Security started in the 1990s. In the changing international security environment and the change of intelligence needs, the Ministry of State Security invested a lot in bringing in advanced technology. In 1995, the budget of the Ministry of State Security for technology research and development was about 500 million yuan, which was used to upgrade encryption devices and communication technology and establish network security protection systems, accounting for 40% of the total budget.
In the field of communication encryption, the Ministry of State Security took the lead in introducing a new generation of encryption algorithms and updated more than 1,000 encryption devices, which greatly improved the confidentiality and precision of information transmission. The processing speed of a single device was about 20% faster than that of the previous generation, further enhancing the capacity of the Ministry of State Security to protect intelligence. These technologies played a vital role in a number of important intelligence cases and were effective in countering potential cyber-attacks and information leaks.
Since the early 21st century, in line with the high tide of the internet and the wave of informatization, MSS adjusted technology priorities to collection and analysis in network intelligence. By 2001, the Ministry of State Security set up a specific cybersecurity department and equipped it with the most advanced monitoring and filtering systems, which are able to process hundreds of millions of data daily. The high efficiency in data processing was because intelligent algorithms allowed intelligence analysts to complete such complicated data filtering and analysis in only 5 minutes and thus greatly facilitated decision-making.
Big data technology and artificial intelligence have gradually been applied in the Ministry of State Security’s intelligence system within the last decade. Since 2015, the ministry has used deep learning algorithms that could recognize the pattern in intelligence data with an accuracy rate of more than 85%. By applying these technologies, the Ministry of State Security is able to promptly identify potential security threats and take effective measures in advance. Similar technologies have already been widely applied in various aspects like counter-terrorism investigations and cross-border monitoring, thus sharply enhancing the capability of the ministry to deal with such complicated intelligence work.
Such upgrading of technologies by the Ministry of State Security is not confined to the defensive fields but has extended to proactive detection areas like counter-espionage and surveillance. In 2018, the Ministry of State Security invested 2 billion yuan in developing facial recognition technology, deploying millions of surveillance cameras across the country with an accuracy rate of 99.8% per camera. The technology shall identify targets among millions with precision and speed up the response pace of intelligence departments in emergencies.
While continually improving with advances in technology, so does the intelligence processing capability of the Ministry of State Security. A good example is that the introduction of cloud computing technology in information storage and transmission has reduced the length of the information processing cycle by half. In 2020, the intelligence database of the Ministry of State Security was able to support 10 billion records, enabling multi-dimensional and comprehensive analysis and providing intelligence personnel with effective retrieval and filtering.
Changes in International Intelligence Cooperation
Since 2000, due to the gradual complexity of the global security situation, the Ministry of State Security has undergone significant changes regarding international intelligence cooperation in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity. As early as 2001, China joined some international organizations for counter-terrorism intelligence sharing and established stable security cooperation mechanisms with neighboring countries. These partnerships have substantially enhanced the efficiency of intelligence gathering and counteraction to threats. Intelligence-sharing arrangements with SCO member countries have speeded up counter-terrorism data exchange by about 25%.
In recent years, with the evident growth of the cybersecurity threat, the Ministry of State Security began to channel more resources into international intelligence cooperation. By 2015, this ministry’s cybersecurity budget had risen to 1.5 billion yuan-most of which was invested in the joint development of cybersecurity systems with several countries’ intelligence agencies. These can handle more than a million records of internet access per second and help in monitoring the sources of potential attacks around the globe. This kind of cooperation not only protects state interests but also raises the whole level of defense within the regional network.
The Ministry of State Security also managed to cooperate smoothly and precisely with multi-national intelligence agencies during major international events. As related to the “WannaCry” ransomware attack in 2017, the Ministry of State Security of China closely cooperated with the security agencies of the United States, Russia, and a number of European countries to trace the source of the virus and exchanged over 100,000 pieces of intelligence information involving virus dissemination. This international cooperation not only accelerated the tracing of the source of the virus but also helped various countries promptly deploy measures of defense. Therefore, it cut over 40% off the speed of virus spread.
Apart from the traditional security fields, the Ministry of State Security has quickened its pace of international cooperation in the domain of economic intelligence. Confronting the challenges brought by transnational economic crime and financial risks, China established regular information-sharing mechanisms with other nations’ security agencies and signed a number of cooperation agreements on safeguarding financial security at several transnational financial security conferences. For instance, the “Economic Security Information Sharing Memorandum” signed with ASEAN countries provides mutual communication of economic crime information, therefore enhancing early warning efficiency against illegal financial activities. Statistics show that through such international cooperation, the transnational financial crime detection rate of the Ministry of State Security has risen by 30%, thus effectively protecting national and regional economic interests.
In 2020, when the public health security threat of COVID-19 was looming, for the first time, the Ministry of State Security cooperated with the WHO and other national health security agencies in cross-discipline intelligence cooperation. It shared with the WHO and relevant departments more than 10 million pieces of data related to the pandemic every week and jointly developed the intelligence strategy to prevent pandemic information asymmetry from causing cross-border transmission risks. This work not only represented the deep involvement of the intelligence agency in non-traditional security fields but also the great responsibility and commitment of China to global health security.
Strengthening Counter-terrorism and Cybersecurity
In the last few years, the Ministry of State Security has made the core tasks in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity, investing huge resources into enhancing the related capabilities. Since 2014, every year, the budget for counter-terrorism has gone up and reached more than 5 billion yuan in 2019 in order to enhance monitoring, upgrade equipment, and input resources in intelligence analysis. During this process, the mechanism for anti-terrorism has been continuously updated, including the establishment of an effective intelligence analytic mechanism, along with a real-time counter-terrorism response team. It was because of this series of investments that the response speed of the Ministry of State Security became 35% faster, thus making them instantly identify potential threats and take quicker measures than ever before.
Considering cybersecurity threats, the Ministry of State Security pays extra attention to enhancing information security technology. Deep learning algorithms using artificial intelligence were introduced to the service by the ministry in 2016 for detecting and preventing cyberattacks. This technology has been especially efficient when the system deals with more than 50 million cyberattacks every day, with an increase in the detection accuracy rate by more than 90%. Abnormal flow identification in real-time threat monitoring of the Cybersecurity Protection System automatically takes countermeasures in seconds to guarantee the safety of key national data.
It is worth mentioning that there is more than one international organization that cooperates in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity with the Ministry of State Security. In 2017, the Ministry of State Security signed the Agreement on Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Sharing with SCO Member States, creating a translation system in more than 20 languages, with data exchange reaching over 200TB every day. These measures, in effect, improve intelligence sharing between countries and, therefore, make significant progress against cross-border terrorist threats. Such was the case in 2018, when shared information on a terrorist plot in Southeast Asia was provided, the possible terrorist attack had been prevented, and the threat had been neutralized before it ever happened.
Throughout 2021, the Ministry of State Security continued improving its counter-terrorism monitoring network, with functions such as facial recognition and behavior analysis added to enable the identification of over 100,000 people in real time. Such technologies, along with high-resolution cameras and cloud computing platforms, would further enable real-time behavioral change analysis in key areas and comprehensively improve the security assurance capability of critical regions. Equipped with such technologies, the counter-terrorism efficiency of intelligence personnel has been enhanced by more than 50% compared to that in the past, ensuring safety during major public events.
Rapid development in cybersecurity also presents new challenges. The Ministry of State Security has, in this connection, established a cybersecurity emergency response team with more than 1,000 professionals. These include regular training in the latest cybersecurity skills, such as DDoS attack prevention and malware analysis. Working in coordination with technology companies, the Ministry of State Security developed an active defense system that can automatically turn on protections within 0.5 seconds from the malicious attack, enormously decreasing the possibility of sensitive data leaks. That, in turn, allowed it to block hundreds of different organized cyberattacks by 2023 and effectively protect key data both within the country and abroad.
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