Intelligence and Informatization: The Rise of the Ministry of Public Security in Intelligence Work in China

Abstract

This article describes why and how China’s Ministry of Public Security has reemerged as an intelligence actor, its structure and surveillance capabilities, how it deploys these, and to what ends. The ministry began to reform its intelligence structures in the early 2000s to reestablish “information dominance” (zhi xinxi quan 制信息权) over an increasingly fluid, networked, and technologically sophisticated society. The ministry’s intelligence reform agenda comprises two integral parts. “Public security informatization” (gong’an xinxihua 公安信息化) describes how the ministry has adapted to the proliferation of IT by transforming the way it collects, analyzes, and disseminates information. Meanwhile, the ministry’s adoption of an “intelligence-led policing” model (qingbao zhidao jingwu 情报指导警务) has led to the implementation of an “intelligence cycle” (qingbao liucheng 情报流程) in public security work, aimed at bringing about effective information management. Today’s public security intelligence system (gong’an qingbao tixi 公安情报体系) ensures that the Chinese security state is able to effectively utilize the oceanic volumes of data entering government systems to better surveil and control society.