Ministry of State Security (China)
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中华人民共和国国家安全部 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó Guójiā Ānquánbù |
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Emblem of the People's Republic of China
(in the centre of the Ministry's seal) |
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Logo of the Ministry of State Security
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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | July 1983 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Jurisdiction |  People's Republic of China |
| Headquarters | Beijing |
| Agency executive |
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| Parent agency | State Council |
The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is the intelligence agency and security agency of the People's Republic of China (non military area of interests), responsible for counter-intelligence, foreign intelligence and political security. It is headquartered near the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China in Beijing.
Article 4 of the Criminal Procedure Law 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 network of state security bureaus and the Ministry of State Security should not be confused with the separate but parallel network of public security bureaus, administered at the national level by the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China, which is responsible for ordinary (non-state security) policing and related administrative matters. The two systems are administratively separate, although at local levels they co-operate to a large extent and often share resources.
The precursor of the modern MSS was the Central Department of Social Affairs (CDSA), the primary intelligence organ of the Communist Party of China (CPC) before its accession to power in 1949. The CDSA operated from the communist base area of Yan'an in Shaanxi Province in northern China during the 1937–45 Second Sino-Japanese War. The CDSA provided the CPC with assessments of the world situation based on news reports and furnished the Communists with intelligence that proved important in the 1946–49 Chinese Civil War against the Nationalist forces.
The CDSA was thoroughly reorganized in the summer of 1949. It ceased to exist in name, and some of its most prominent officers were transferred to senior positions in the new Ministry of Public Security of the CCP Central Revolutionary Military Affairs Commission (after the founding of the People's Republic of China renamed the Ministry of Public Security of the Central People's Government). After an extended transition during which segments of the former CDSA came within the purview of the People's Liberation Army, it was fully re-established as an organ directly under the Communist Party Central Committee in 1955, now with the new name Central Investigation Department (CID). The MSS was established in 1983 as the result of the merger of the CID and the counter-intelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China. One of its longest-serving chiefs was Jia Chunwang, a native of Beijing and a 1964 graduate of Tsinghua University, who is reportedly an admirer of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He served as Minister of State Security from 1985 until March 1998, when the MSS underwent an overhaul and Xu Yongyue was appointed the new head of the organization. Jia was then appointed to the Minister of Public Security post, after a decade of distinguished service as head of the MSS.
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Wikipedia