China, May of 1951

The History of Intelligence Agencies in China

The current state of our intelligence apparatus, while not horrid, is lacking in efficiency and capacity; in order to achieve our goals of possessing a capable, effective and brutal intelligence agency, we must do a brief overview of the intelligence agencies of the CCP.

In 1927, Premier Zhou Enlai created the Central Military Department Special Operations Branch (Zhongyang junwei teke), responsible for obtaining intelligence while being divided into multiple sections, such as the ‘Red Squad’, or the Hong Dui, responsible for the elimination of political opponents. Following that, from August 1927 to 1935, there existed the Special Services Section (Zhongyang tebie xingdong ke), once again organized by Premier Zhou Enlai with multiple departments, including: (i) the general branch, responsible for clandestine accommodations and meeting places, alongside (ii) intelligence, (iii) operations and (iv) radio communications; the leader being Gu Shunzhang between 1927-1931; this intelligence agency got rapidly curbed following KMT suppression in 1931, but clandestine activities of the SSS certainly aided the CCP in surviving during the tenuous period of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

While officially disbanded in 1935, the SSS got de facto replaced by the Political Protection Bureau (Zhongyang zhengzhi baowei ju) in 1931, with Deng Fa as its leader. The bureau was generally focused on protection of leadership and counterintelligence operations, being responsible for rooting out enemies of the CCP within their own ranks.

Between 1939-1951, the Social Affairs Department (Zhonggong zhongyang shehui bu) was the successor to the PPB, with Kang Sheng as its commander. According to Donald W. Klein and Anne B. Clark, on their work “Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921-1965, vol. 1”, Kang Sheng was probably trained by the USSR, in intelligence and security operations. From his appointment in 1939 until 1943, Kang spread SAD officers down to the local level in many areas held by the CCP; he integrated intelligence, counterintelligence and policing; systematized reporting and analysis; and established intelligence stations in previously untouched regions. The SAD had, in essence, the following purposes:

• Formulate CCP security policies and plans;
• Provide guidance to subordinate SAD elements;
• Direct security measures and purges within the Party;
• Provide security-related guidance to the military, Party, and other groups on public security and intelligence;
• Assign cadres to perform espionage, enemy penetration, and other subversion within the party;
• Devise codes and ciphers.

It was also organized with a director, a deputy director, a secretary general and subordinate sections: First Section, organization; Second Section, intelligence; Third Section, examination and trial; Fourth Section, analysis; a general services section; and a cadet training corps.

Our New Agencies, Ready to Serve

Now, in 1951, after so many years with Kang Sheng and Li Kenong, we set out to restructure a new agency, ready to serve all of China, and the CCP in all of its vastness. That is why we are going to be closing down the Social Affairs Department, and creating two new agencies, the first one being the Ministry of Public Security (Gong’an bu). All of the previous military personnel and employees of SAD will be transferred, by merit and knowledge, to either the MPS or to our secondary agency.

The Organization of the MPS

The MPS is China’s national police agency, and it will possess subordinated public security bureaus in each province, county and municipality, where local police stations will reside. The ministry will focus on police work, but it will possess the directives to participate in counterrorist operations, administering the PRC’s vast household registration and national identification system, conducting border security and immigration work, passports, visas, and supervising public information networks.

Luo Ruiqing has been picked by Chairman Mao Zedong as the first chairman of the MPS; and he will focus on enemies from Beijing to the local police stations. The CCP will reorganize the officers of the previous regime, the illegal Kuomintang, and put them into public security bureaus, subordinate to the ministry, with suitable Communist recruits in their place. Those ex-KMT officers will be investigated and appropriately vetted.

The MPS, during this initial period of revolutionary fervor and establishment of our People’s Republic, will be conducting “participatory surveillance” with our population; the citizens of our new China will be responsible for denouncing all those who are seen as suspicious, as the MPS gathers the strength it needs to become a professional police force, with capable officials and the discipline necessary to crack cases and appropriately locate criminals and spies. The “participatory surveillance” campaign will be of crucial importance during the seizure of opium dens and the arrest and execution of opium dealers all over China.

Furthermore, the usage of mass surveillance and popular surveillance will allow the MPS to avoid implementing many manpower-intensive situations; the usage of control through neighborhood committees, political campaigns that harass our opponents, and the hukou household registration policy, which forbids migration without the permission of the Central Government and records visits to other areas.

Alongside such programs, that will undoubtedly make it harder for any international power to investigate and perform espionage within the PRC, we shall also invite Soviet advisors to provide technical guidance and effective basic training for our cadets and officers. We shall also invest heavily into making the MPS perform frequent interagency coordination training and common standards.

The general structure of the MPS will be simplistic and efficient, as to reduce confusion and maximize performance: the general office of the MPS, where the Chairman of the MPS, Luo Ruiqing will be, and (i) directorate of political security, (ii) directorate of economic security, (iii) directorate of public order and administration, (iv) directorate of border security, (v) directorate of armed security and (vi) directorate of personnel.

The Organization of the MSS

Alongside the MPS, the SAD was also divided into the Ministry of State Security (Guojia anquan bu), designed to, in the words of Premier Zhou Enlai, “to protect the security of the state and strengthen China’s counterespionage work.”. Kang Sheng will be tasked with heading the MSS as its first Chairman and, in a speech on May 15, 1951, said the following:

“The duty of every officer in the MSS is to conduct the security of China; we are the bastion of security in the nation, responsible for furthering Socialism and the liberty of all peoples within China. Doing state security work well, will effectively promote Socialist modernization and the cause of realizing the unification of the Motherland under Chairman Mao Zedong. We shall oppose hegemonism, defending world peace, and maintaining the four key commandments of the MSS: (i) never neglecting either party work nor professional work; (ii) maintaining a unanimous political position behind the CCP leadership; (iii) adhering to party discipline; (iv) protecting the People’s Republic of China.”

The most important distinction between the MSS and the SAD is that we possess a Chairman ideologically aligned to the CCP, but that does not possess the formal role of ideological enforcement. The MSS will be responsible for intelligence and (major) counterintelligence operations, put into the State Council, that is, the PRC government, rather than the CCP. Our chief intelligence organization will, naturally, possess pure party loyalty, but the role of enforcement will be put into the MPS.

Due to the power relegated to the MPS, an anti-corruption framework will be put in place specifically for MSS members; that is, when MSS members are found guilty of espionage or corruption, the definition being the usage of their own power to benefit another member or political leader, or failing to carry out the will of the CCP effectively, will be punished with life imprisonment and, if the crime is grievous enough, they will be executed.

The MSS will be a national organization, which means it will be present in every province of the People’s Republic of China, and from a national to a local level, the MSS and its subordinate departments will report to two major Commissions, in order to bring forth responsibility: the Political-Legal Commission, and the Central State Security Commission (CSSC). The Political-Legal Commission will be headed by a Politburo member, initially, Gao Gang, at the central level and a deputy party secretary at a lower level. The commissions oversee all state security, public security, prisons and protectorate elements for their level.

The CSSC will be chaired, initially, by Chen Yun, and will have two main objectives: balancing internal power politics created by the expansion of the MSS, the MPS and a subsequent agency that shall be created, the Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department. It shall also orient the MSS and other security forces towards planning for and preempting threats to the CCP.

There’ll be a general overlap between the CSSC and the Political-Legal Commission in order to form a general spirit of cooperation and accountability towards the MSS. They will form together a system to oversee local security and intelligence work. The MSS is also organized in Bureaus, in the following way:

Once again, we are going to be inviting Soviet personnel to aid us in the training of the MSS, alongside providing interagency cooperation and coordination with the MPS and the Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department (2PLA).

The Organization of the 2PLA

The Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department (Zongcan Er Ju), also known as the 2PLA, is the Chinese military’s primary intelligence organization; 2PLA will report to a deputy commander of the General Staff Department (GSD). The 2PLA will be divided into three systems, rather than bureaus, and will be focused on military intelligence, which will serve us well in the future as well as the present.

The three systems will be, in essence: (i) System responsible for clandestine HUMINT operations; (ii) System responsible for scientific research and technical operations; (iii) System responsible for defense attachés, overt human intelligence collection and conducted analysis of foreign affairs, with responsibilities divided into areas, those being USSR and Eastern Europe; U.S. and Western Europe; and Asia.

The 2PLA will also be headed by Liu Bocheng, and will be held responsible under the Joint Staff Department and the CSSC and the Political-Legal Commission. Once again, the USSR will be invited to train advisors for 2PLA, alongside MPS and MSS.