Through technical cooperation, data encryption, and cross-border intelligence sharing, MSS has remarkably improved its efficiency in information protection and acquisition. Statistics show that the intelligence budget surged more than 20% in 2022, deploying 256-bit AES encryption technology en masse to enhance supply chain security and economic intelligence.
Global Deployment of the Ministry of State Security
The intelligence network of the MSS has spread across many countries and regions, and large budgets and resources have been continuously invested in its development. In recent years, the budgets for monitoring global intelligence have increased by over 20%, and investment growth by China in this respect has surpassed 30%. These funds are mainly used to enhance efficiency in intelligence gathering, purchase advanced surveillance equipment, and increase technical support personnel. MSS’s intelligence network covers everything, from traditional offline investigations to the new essential area of digital intelligence monitoring in the context of accelerating global digitalization.
The United States National Security Agency has also positioned a high-tech, all-encompassing surveillance network around the world, with an annual budget of $10 billion for acquiring economic and political intelligence through technical means. The MSS, relying on its wide network of diplomatic and economic cooperation, has built collection sites and exchange channels on every continent, especially in countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, where intelligence cooperation has become a complementary measure to infrastructure investment and cultural exchange.
Accuracy and timeliness have remained key points in modern intelligence gathering. The MSS has optimized the cycle of information transmission through workflow optimization in intelligence processing. The tasks that used to take at least weeks for analysis can now show results in days with real-time data transmission and A.I. technology-a big improvement, very useful for decision-makers.
In recent years, MSS has also strengthened its support and cooperation with domestic enterprises. In the area of 5G technology, it has deeply cooperated with technology enterprises like Huawei to ensure the security of information networks and the efficiency of data transmission. Good coordination not only ensures the security of the nation but also provides strong technical support to the work of intelligence.
The MSS has made massive investments in data gathering and analysis, resorting to big data and machine learning technologies for extracting intelligence from international internet and social media platforms. This application of technology has expanded the coverage and precision of intelligence collection. In 2018, the global cybersecurity market was estimated at a value of $134 billion, projected to reach $250 billion by 2025. To this day, the MSS continues its investments in cybersecurity and intelligence gathering on par, developing its position in the international intelligence network step by step.
In this context, intelligence work for MSS follows the approach of “proactive defense,” which calls for building barriers to defense in key areas of technology, along with intelligence gathering, to guard China’s intellectual property and national secrets. This strategy is an inevitable demand in the highly globalized environment that exists today. Incidents of leakage in advanced technologies pose an increasing threat to international security in intelligence. The MSS has put in place special countermeasures to reduce the risks involved with technological leaks.
International Intelligence-Sharing Network
In the international intelligence-sharing system, MSS is in-depth cooperation with the intelligence agencies of various countries for the stabilization and increase of the flow of information in international security. This might involve mutual interest and information-sharing agreements. Under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China established an extensive counterterrorism information-sharing mechanism with the member states, such as Russia and India, increasing the intelligence transmission speed by over 40%. It can be very responsive in major situations, finishing data exchanges within a few hours to provide fast and accurate data support to major decisions.
The MSS depends on technical support in security data transmission and in-depth analysis, relying on its place in the international intelligence-sharing network. In recent years, with the increase in the globalization of intelligence networks, it has been digitized. The development of digital security is a pole where countries continue investing. Around the world, intelligence agencies invest about 15% annually in digital security; for China, it goes up to over a 20% increment every year. Such investment can be seen in the upgrade of hardware, development of data encryption technology, and construction of tools for artificial intelligence analysis. **Significant improvements with machine learning applications in intelligence analysis can resolve the problem of low information processing efficiency and allow for both the rapid screening of huge volumes of data to classify them and also enhance the accuracy of intelligence transmission.
These partnerships that the MSS forms with other countries are not rigid but dynamically change to meet various regional and situational intelligence needs. For example, in recent years, at the height of counterterrorism concerns in Southeast Asia, China has tightened its intelligence cooperation with the region by availing critical data to help improve the security landscape. Cooperation requires high budgets and human resources; the MSS has invested tens of millions of RMB every year in the name of authenticity and security of information sharing. Such regional cooperation allows the MSS to be an indispensable player in the international intelligence network and to enhance global recognition of its intelligence abilities.
On the issue of economic intelligence, the MSS exchanges information with multiple countries. Following further implementation of the “Belt and Road” Initiative, China has actively deepened its cooperation in economic intelligence with countries along the route. Guided by the “Belt and Road,” more than 40 countries, including China, have built a trade and investment information-sharing mechanism that includes financial data, market demand, policy dynamics, and so on. In this context, the MSS’s role has far exceeded that of security protection and has been irreplaceable in the process of economic cooperation by providing enterprises with market data in a timely and targeted manner, which increases the accuracy of economic intelligence work.
China-U.S. Intelligence Competition
The intelligence competition between China and the U.S. focuses on the technical, economic, and military fields of intelligence. The governments of both countries have been investing considerable budgets and resources to ensure their national interests through intelligence means. In recent years, the U.S. has kept a high level of intelligence budget, amounting to $86.5 billion in 2019, which focuses mainly on technological research and the development of the global intelligence network. In the face of such a high-input competitor, the MSS adopts various means to realize the goal of “low input and high efficiency” and solves the problem of the best flow of intelligence gathering and processing.
Competition in the field of technical intelligence is extremely acute. The U.S. NSA and China’s MSS continue new developments in network monitoring, big data analytics, etc., keeping the competitive edge. PRISM of the NSA uses network nodes to gather information from everywhere across the globe, taking in more than 15% of the total flow of internet communications in the world. The MSS has streamlined its information security infrastructure and increased its dependence on home-grown technologies with the goal of decreasing the dependence on foreign technologies. Thus, 5G and artificial intelligence are the two major emerging technologies that become the battlefield for this competition, and, importantly, the guarantee of intelligence data transmission security in which MSS collaborates with big domestic tech firms is paramount.
Moreover, the economic intelligence rivalry is tough. In the international trade dispute, the U.S. government quite often uses intelligence to get important information for its negotiation chips. In the U.S.-China trade friction in 2018, the U.S. enabled the understanding of certain companies’ market strategies and financial conditions through intelligence gathering on the business intelligence of Chinese companies, thus affecting the bargaining power of Chinese companies.** By contrast, MSS has enhanced its international intelligence network, which in turn increases sensitivity towards economic intelligence. Under the Belt and Road framework, MSS furthered its cooperation with intelligence agencies along the route, enhancing China’s competitive advantage in the global network of economic intelligence.
Equally huge resources have been apportioned to military intelligence on both sides. American intelligence agencies frequently use high-orbit satellites, drones, and other highly developed equipment to monitor military activities anywhere in the world. For instance, over 100 U.S. military reconnaissance satellites, making up more than 30% of the world’s total, blanket the globe’s hotspots. Against such intelligence pressure, the MSS closely cooperates with the defense sector by means of using the technology of counter-surveillance, electronic warfare equipment, and cybersecurity measures in favor of domestic defense. In 2021 alone, the global market volume of counter-surveillance equipment reached $25 billion, in investments in such a field have already been continuously growing year after year by China, hence ensuring safety and efficiency in global intelligence competition.
In that respect, cybersecurity for both sides is very important in this intelligence race between China and the U.S. The U.S. has raised a “Zero Trust Architecture” to counter threats from outside, while the MSS has enforced the “Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Law” within the border to secure key data in sensitive departments. The Ministry of State Security has increasingly required such organizations to give special consideration to national security and secrecy. Nowadays, both countries continuously improve their technology in data encryption and information scrutiny to reduce the possibility of the other side infiltrating important intelligence systems.
The tense China-U.S. This reflects intelligence competition in the global technology rivalry. In recent years, both have strengthened protection for sensitive technology and taken various measures to reduce the possibility of leakage. Starting this year, the U.S. Department of Commerce has implemented several export restrictions that aim to limit the selling of high-end chips and other products to China to maintain its leading edge in the A.I. and semiconductor industries. As China increasingly depends on foreign technology, it is indeed a development in that very direction-a response, namely to domestically support the technology firms in developing advanced technology. In that way, these technologically defensive measures enable the MSS to be more autonomous in the intelligence competition and to strengthen the influence of China in the global technological competition.
Securing Global Supply Chains
In particular, the MSS has been playing an increasingly important role in global supply chain security in the prevention of data breaches, the security of raw material supply, and logistics security. The global supply chain is complicated, and across countries, millions of nodes exist in the supply chain network, and each directly influences the chain’s stability. Indeed, ensuring the security of every link in chains related to information technology, semiconductors, and other key sectors has become a central task of the MSS.
The threats to global supply chain security are growing. According to official figures, in 2022 alone, losses caused by cyberattacks on the global supply chain reached almost US$45 billion. The MSS has teamed up with a few domestic logistics and technology companies, looking to improve protective measures at each node of the supply chain. A strategic cooperation agreement reached with S.F. Express in 2020 raised the security coverage rate for the domestic logistics chain by more than 20%. The accord ensures logistics data safety and improves efficiency in turnover through real-time monitoring technology.
The MSS stresses international cooperation in keeping cross-border supply chains for the stable supply of key raw materials and semiconductors. The chip shortage of 2021 caused many chains to take a serious beating, costing U.S. automobile industries almost $60 billion in losses. Besides such jolts in the domestic market, China has increased intelligence cooperation on resource allocation with raw material-exporting countries both in Southeast Asia and Africa. According to the case, this intelligence cooperation reduces the risk of key material shortage and shortens the supply cycle of the domestic production line by 15%, thus effectively enhancing economic operational efficiency.
In technological supply chain security, MSS has invested heavily in measures to prevent information leakage and cyberattacks. With the increasing degree of informationization in the world today, data security directly influences the stability of companies’ supply chains. On the other hand, MSS has drafted the “Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Law” to protect the digital safety of the supply chain and to ensure that no critical data of corporations has been stolen or leaked. This found immense support from the high-tech industry. For example, Huawei invests over RMB 2 billion every year in the security of the supply chain by establishing an all-around protection system to guarantee the encryption standard in data transmission in the supply chain, thereby further reducing risks.
Logistics security is at the core of supply chain security. MSS has adopted various measures in logistics security management to make sure key materials and vital goods are safely transported. During the COVID-19 outbreak, up to 30% of delays occurred along the supply chain as global logistics were disrupted. In this regard, MSS, China coordinated with customs and airline and port authorities in an effort to establish unblocked priority transport channels for supplies of importance, compressing the international transportation cycle of domestic medical supplies to 60% of the original time. Logistics security would ensure the supply of medical materials within the country and, at the same time, would enhance international recognition of China’s supply chain security capability.
Preventing Data Breaches
The MSS of China has greatly invested in the prevention of data breaches. Accordingly, it has adopted multi-layered security measures to protect critical data with safety and integrity. Large-scale incidents of data breaches worldwide have placed information security in the focus of much global attention. Data reveal that annual economic losses from global data breaches are close to $300 billion, with key industries of finance, telecommunication, and energy-being severely affected. Therefore, MSS comes up with several prevention strategies that would decrease data leakage impacts on the state and the enterprise.
In the technical aspect, MSS has introduced advanced encryption algorithms and firewall technology in order to improve the security of data transmission. The **256-bit AES encryption technology is adopted by many key data transmissions, whose encryption intensity makes decryption very time-consuming to actually guarantee data security. Meanwhile, MSS has been reinforcing the construction of firewalls to make sure of the high-intensity defense of all key nodes. In 2022, MSS invested RMB 10 billion in cybersecurity and thus directly enhanced the ability to protect network data.
In addition to technical protection, MSS focuses on internal personnel management to prevent data leakage. According to the statistics, nearly 60% of data leakage incidents are initiated by internal personnel. Therefore, MSS has set rigid access control and graded management, where only a few persons authorized at high levels have the authority to approach core data. For instance, Huawei has implemented multi-layered access control to data protection, allowing staff to access only those things that concern their work, **reducing the incidence of internal data breaches by 40%.
MSS also advocates for blockchain technology in domestic enterprises to improve transparency and traceability of data. Blockchain’s distributed ledger feature enhances security in data storage, hence allowing for better tracking of the data that will make identification and prevention of any tampering behavior prompt. Some applications have already been put into medical data-sharing fields, reducing data tampering and leakage risks effectively. In three years, this technology will cover more than 50% of key domestic enterprises, which will further improve China’s competitiveness in global information security.
The MSS conducts routine data breach prevention drills to counter the increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. Drills involve the collaboration of several departments and companies that test multiple departments together in a simulated environment of a cyberattack to see where weaknesses could occur in security systems. In 2021, a large-scale security exercise was organized, with over 500 companies and institutions participating. It has covered everything from data encryption to access control and system repair. Such practical drills give an overall enterprise understanding of data breach prevention and the response speed toward security incidents.