Shanghai State Security Bureau
Chinese: 上海市国家安全局
Shanghai Secrecy Administration Bureau logo

SSSB headquarters as seen from the Lupu Bridge with the Huangpu river at left
Ministry overview
FormedApril 1984 (1984-04)[1]
Preceding ministry
  • Shanghai Public Security Bureau
JurisdictionShanghai, China
Headquarters1 Ruining Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China 31°11′30″N 121°28′01″E / 31.1917°N 121.4670°E / 31.1917; 121.4670
EmployeesClassified, at least 10,000
Annual budgetClassified
Ministry executive
  • Huang Baokun (黄宝坤), Director
Parent ministryMinistry of State Security
Websitewww.shjsb.gov.cn
Shanghai State Security Bureau
Simplified Chinese上海市国家安全局
Shanghai Secrecy Administration Bureau
Simplified Chinese上海市国家保密局

The Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB; Chinese: 上海市国家安全局) is a municipal bureau of the China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) charged with intelligence operations in the country's most populous city.[2] With tens of thousands of employees, it is one of the most aggressive and internationally active units of the MSS, conducting long-term global foreign espionage operations and major cyberespionage campaigns which stretch far beyond the Shanghai metropolis.[3] The bureau acts in concert with the Shanghai Municipal Party Secrecy Committee, and the two represent themselves publicly as one institution, a front called the Shanghai Secrecy Administration Bureau (SSAB, Chinese: 上海市国家保密局).[4]

The Shanghai bureau is one of the most prolific MSS units targeting the United States; it also conducts elaborate operations to target and influence the Buddhist community in Asia.[5][6][3] The bureau maintains an "immense business empire" of front companies in property development, international shipping and telecommunications,[3] and operates at least 18 subordinate branch offices, one in every administrative division of the city.[5]

The headquarters of the SSSB is 1 Ruining Road in the Xuhui District near the Lupu Bridge. The building is bordered on three sides by water, situated at the confluence of the Huangpu river which bisects the entire city, and the Rihui river which serves as the border between the Xuhui and Huangpu districts.[3] The building is a glass high rise office tower with space for 10,000 employees. It is the largest of several large SSSB facilities in the city.[3]

History and domestic operations

The work of the Shanghai State Security Bureau was originally performed by the Investigation Department of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the CCP, which was established in June 1955, this later evolved into the Shanghai Public Security Bureau (PSB) of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). In April 1984, the MSS was established, taking over intelligence functions previously handled by the MPS. With it, the Public Security Bureau transferred its counterespionage and intelligence components to the new State Security Bureau.[7]

Due to its location in Shanghai, the Bureau benefits from local access to world class universities, think tanks, businesses and infrastructure from which it recruits staff and recruits foreigners.[8]

In 2016, The New York Times reported on a bureau recruitment flyer distributed to Shanghai universities, which sought majors in English, Japanese, German, French, and Russian and students with knowledge of Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazakh, Mongolian, as well as Hokkien, Hakka and Cantonese, suggesting the bureau is focused on foreign intelligence targets, counterintelligence coverage of foreigners inside China, and domestic intelligence work for monitoring the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s internal enemies.[8]

Branch offices

The SSSB has a bureau in the Pudong New Area, and branch offices in Luwan, Zhabei, Xuhui, Baoshan, Jing'an, Huangpu, Yangpu, Hongkou, Changning, Putuo, Minhang, Jiading, Nanhui, Songjiang, Jinshan, Qingpu, and Fengxian districts of Shanghai.[9]

Targeting of Buddhists

The SSSB is heavily involved in targeting the Buddhist community. Nanshan Temple, a prominent religious complex in Hainan with the Guanyin of Nanshan statue, is owned by an SSSB front, and has become a leading platform for influence operations against the Buddhist populations of southeast Asia, and countering Indian Buddhist influence.[3]

Overseas intelligence activities

The listing address of the SSSB is in this former police precinct at 185 Fuzhou Road in the Huangpu District.

According to The New York Times, in 2003 and 2004, the SSSB blackmailed a cryptographer at the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai who had an affair with a prostitute to provide the personal information of a Japanese diplomat. In 2004, the staff member committed suicide. According to a report from the Shūkan Bunshun, a suicide note addressed to the consul general said that Chinese intelligence agents threatened him with providing Japanese diplomatic secrets on the grounds that he had an abnormal relationship with a girl in a karaoke bar, but he was unwilling to sell state secrets.[3]

In recent years it's approached numerous current and retired US government officials, as well as scholars and journalists, successfully recruiting some and paying them to hand over sensitive information.[3]

Operations against the United States

The SSSB has long been heavily involved in espionage against the United States, particularly in recruiting human intelligence (HUMINT) sources. High-profile American agents of the SSSB caught by US authorities have included Kevin Patrick Mallory, Candace Claiborne, Glenn Duffie Shriver, and Alexander Yuk Ching Ma. The intelligence sought by SSSB case officers in these cases have tended to involve internal US policy deliberations and internal State Department reactions to talks with China.[10]

FBI officials in the Mallory case testified that "since at least 2014, the FBI has assessed that the…SSSB…has [had] a close relationship with Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and uses SASS employees as spotters and assessors" and "has further assessed that SSSB intelligence officers have also used SASS affiliation as cover identities."[10][11]

Sinologist Peter Mattis described the Shanghai bureau's method of recruiting as "a high-volume model of casting a wide net to see whoever they can reel in. If they get one in 10 or one in 20 to bite, that works for them."[10]

Separately, a freelance journalist focused on Asian affairs received SSSB requests for information from the US State Department or National Security Council related to US policy in Burma, contacts with North Korea, and talks with Cambodia related to the South China Sea.[10]

Directors of the Shanghai State Security Bureau

Unlike other MSS components, the SSSB is believed not to provide much upward career mobility to other parts of the ministry. Cai Xumin is the only former SSSB director to have been promoted to MSS vice minister in Beijing, he was later moved back to Shanghai as the city's deputy procurator.[5]

Founding SSSB chief Ding Shenglie (丁升烈) came from a background in the Central Investigation Department. As an ethnic Korean, during the Korean War he had been sent to Seoul to carry out clandestine operations.[12]

List of directors

The directors of the SSSB have been:

No. Director Took office Left office Time in office ref.
1 Ding Shenglie (丁升烈) February 1984 June 1991 7 years [13][7]
2 Wang Yunzhang (汪云章) June 1991 December 1995 4 years [13]
3 Cai Xumin (蔡旭敏) December 1995 June 23, 2004 9 years [13]
4 Wu Zhonghai (吴中海) June 23, 2004 February 15, 2012 8 years [13]
5 Zhu Xiaochao (朱小超) February 15, 2012 2015 3 years [13]
6 Dong Weimin (董卫民) 2015 2020 5 years
7 Huang Baokun (黄宝坤) 2020 unknown unknown

Insignia

Officially, the SSSB uses the MSS shield which displays the hammer and sickle emblem of the Chinese Communist Party, rather than the National Emblem of the People's Republic of China. In June 2014, the SSSB released a solicitation for public submissions for a logo for its cover, the Shanghai Secrecy Administration Bureau, choosing the final insignia from among the entrants.[14][4]

References

  1. ↑ "上海市國家安全局 - 怪猫的图书资源库" [Shanghai State Security Bureau]. Fudan University (in Chinese). Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  2. ↑ Jensen, Chris (August 13, 2020) in United States vs Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, CR: 1:20-mj-01016-DKW-RT
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Joske, Alex (2022). Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World. Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books. ISBN 9781743589007.
  4. 1 2 "上海市国家保密局徽标评选揭晓-设计揭晓-设计大赛网". www.sjdasai.com. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  5. 1 2 3 Mattis, Peter (July 9, 2017). "Everything We Know about China's Secretive State Security Bureau". The National Interest. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  6. ↑ Collado, Ramon (November 4, 2017). "Land grabs in the South China Sea: aggressive behaviour must be resisted". Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  7. 1 2 Joske, Alex (2023). "State security departments: The birth of China's nationwide state security system" (PDF). Deserepi: Studies in Chinese Communist Party External Work.
  8. 1 2 Tatlow, Didi Kirsten (2016-02-19). "Speak Uighur? Have Good Vision? China's Security Services Want You". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  9. ↑ "上海市國家安全局" [Shanghai National Security Bureau]. Jendow (in Chinese). Retrieved 2023-04-06.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "China Spy". Asia Sentinel. July 4, 2017. Retrieved 2023-04-05.
  11. ↑ "Virginia Man Arrested and Charged With Espionage - Criminal Complaint". U.S. Department of Justice. 2017-06-22. Archived from the original on 2020-06-30. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  12. ↑ Joske, Alex (September 2023). "State Security Departments: The Birth of China's Nationwide State Security System" (PDF). Deserepi: 13.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 "上海市國家安全局 - 怪猫的图书资源库" [Shanghai State Security Bureau]. Fudan University (in Chinese). Retrieved 2023-08-10.
  14. ↑ "上海市国家保密局徽标logo征集启事 - 标识（LOGO）、吉祥物 - 征集网-全球征集网官方-logo征集设计网-标识logo-征集LOGO-文创设计征集". www.1zj.com. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
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