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The nature and scale of the Chinese Intelligence Services (ChIS) are like many aspects of China's government—hard to grasp for the outsider, due to the size of the bureaucracy, the blurring of lines of accountability between party and state officials, a partially decentralised system, and a lack of verifiable information. ***

President Xi's reform agenda has aimed to increase professionalisation of Chinese intelligence activities domestically and overseas. Expenditure on the internal security apparatus has outpaced even China's recent dramatic military modernisation: by some estimates, China now spends almost 20% more on domestic security than on external defence, and this appears to have led to an improvement in capability. MI5 told the Committee: ***

According to UK Intelligence Community evidence, China almost certainly maintains the largest state intelligence apparatus in the world—in excess of personnel—which means that it is not necessarily straightforward to identify which parts of this enormous apparatus are targeted at the UK and our allies ***. ***

The ChIS are highly active, but the scope and scale of their activities vary widely—for instance, it has been reported that the Ministry of State Security (MSS) has a wide network of regional and municipal offices that exist under a federated structure. This means that one area of domestic or foreign policy might be a priority for one office, but not for another; or alternatively, two offices will have the same priority but may not co-ordinate their efforts.

With that said, the overarching priorities for the ChIS include ensuring that the CCP's message is delivered consistently and that subversive views are prevented from gaining traction amongst the population—thereby preserving the CCP's monopoly on power. According to open-source reporting, there are several CCP priorities supported by the ChIS's work: