With the removal and detention of Vice Minister Ma Jian of the Ministry of State Security (MoSS) there is a void at the top of China’s civilian intelligence apparatus. Ma Jian is the third Vice Minister of the MoSS to be removed in recent years. Till his removal he was viewed as a possible successor to Geng Huichang, the current Minister of State Security, who is due to retire in the next two to three years.
In 2012, President Hu Jintao disciplined and retired Executive Vice Minister Lu Zhongwei because one of his close aides allegedly spied for a foreign government. Lu Zhongwei had worked his way up the MoSS ranks through the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), one of China’s most prestigious international affairs think tanks and staffed entirely by MoSS officers. The other Vice Minister to be removed was Qiu Jin, a counterintelligence and counterespionage specialist. He came in to the media limelight for escorting Bo Xilai and his police chief Wang Lijun from the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu to Beijing. Earlier, Qiu Jin reportedly directed the MoSS headquarters counterespionage investigations bureau and the provincial unit for counterespionage in the Beijing State Security Bureau.
The two publicly-identified Vice Ministers who could succeed Minister of State Security Geng Huichang when he retires are: Sun Yonghai and Dong Haizhou. Sun Yonghai is a special member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and MSS Vice Minister. He was born in 1953 and internet sources suggest he became a Vice Minister in 2006. Other sources suggest Sun Yonghai headed the MSS Fifth Bureau, which handles intelligence source reporting and requirements. Dong Haizhou has a similarly low profile. He is a member of the CPPCC and in 2005 became a member of the MoSS Party Committee. He was promoted as Vice Minister in 2006. He has served in the Tianjin State Security Bureau.
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