The agency is “expected to play an even more significant role in China’s domestic and international security and stability” in the coming years, amid mounting challenges at home and abroad, Guo said. (Photo by Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images) Frédéric Soltan/Corbis News/Getty ImagesĬhina has been operating military and spy facilities in Cuba for years, US officials say
But the sprawling Beijing-headquartered MSS is even more secretive – without even a public website describing its activities.ĬUBA, HAVANA - AUGUST 02 : Aerial view of the city of Havana on Augin Havana, Cuba. Its remit has encouraged analogies to a combined CIA and Federal Bureau of Intelligence. The MSS, established in 1983, oversees intelligence and counterintelligence both within China and overseas. Other arms of the Communist Party apparatus also play a role in activities beyond conventional intelligence gathering, experts say. That’s been accompanied by “a consistent emphasis on enhancing intelligence capabilities, modernizing technology, and improving coordination among different security agencies,” according to Xuezhi Guo, a professor of political science at Guilford College in the US.Ĭhina’s main intelligence activities fall under departments within the People’s Liberation Army and its vast civilian agency known as the Ministry of State Security (MSS). Navy/APĬhinese leader Xi Jinping has also pursued a far more assertive foreign policy than his predecessors during his past decade in power. This puts a premium on both countries’ ability to gather intelligence to understand each other’s capabilities, actions, and strategic intent around the globe,” said Lyle Morris, a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.Ī Chinese J-16 fighter moves close to a US reconnaissance aircraft flying in international airspace over the South China Sea on Friday, May 26, 2023. “Crisis communications are arguably in their worst state since 1979. They underscore how intelligence gathering – an activity meant to go on without detection, out of the public eye – is becoming an increasingly prominent flashpoint in the US-China relationship.ĬIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to China in May to meet counterparts and emphasize the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels, CNN reported earlier this month.
The situation is just the latest in a string of allegations of spying between the two in recent months. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to land in Beijing over the weekend following the postponement of his earlier trip planned for February after a Chinese surveillance balloon meandered across the continental US, hovering over sensitive military sites before being shot down by an American fighter plane.īut with Blinken poised to make a trip seen as a key step to mend fractured US-China communications, another espionage controversy has flared in recent days following media reports that China had reached a deal to build a spy perch on the island of Cuba.īeijing has said it wasn’t “aware” of the situation, while the White House said the reports were not accurate – with Blinken earlier this week saying China upgraded its spying facilities there in 2019. For the second time this year, concerns of Chinese spying on the United States have cast a shadow over a planned visit to China by the US’ top diplomat as the two superpowers try to improve fractured ties while keeping a watchful eye on each other.
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