Based on Wikipedia: China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

Imagine walking into a prestigious research institute in Beijing. The halls are lined with academic journals. Distinguished scholars discuss international relations over tea. Graduate students work on doctoral dissertations about American foreign policy. Everything looks exactly like a university think tank.

It isn't.

The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations—known by the acronym CICIR and pronounced "KICK-er"—is, according to a 2009 report from the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the public face of the 11th Bureau of China's Ministry of State Security. The Ministry of State Security, or MSS, is China's primary civilian intelligence agency, roughly equivalent to what you'd get if you merged the CIA and FBI into a single organization. CICIR is its research and collection arm, dressed up in academic robes.

A Wolf in Scholar's Clothing

The French intelligence expert Roger Faligot put it bluntly: "CICIR is one of the rare examples anywhere in the world of a think-tank presenting itself as 100 per cent academic, but having become 100 per cent integrated into the intelligence service."

This matters because academic institutions enjoy privileges that intelligence agencies do not. Professors can attend international conferences without arousing suspicion. Researchers can request meetings with foreign diplomats and officials. Academic collaborations create natural pretexts for travel abroad. A business card reading "Senior Research Fellow" opens doors that "MSS Intelligence Officer" would slam shut.

The CIA's assessment was unsparing. The agency's Open Source Center—a unit that analyzes publicly available information from around the world—concluded that CICIR resembles a "Soviet-style intelligence organ." This comparison is telling. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union perfected the art of using academic institutions as fronts for intelligence work. The Institute of the USA and Canada in Moscow, for instance, produced genuine scholarship while also serving Soviet intelligence objectives. CICIR follows this playbook closely.

Origins in Wartime Intelligence

The roots of CICIR reach back to the 1940s, during some of the most chaotic years in modern Chinese history. The Chinese Communist Party, then fighting both the Japanese invasion and a civil war against the Nationalist government, established intelligence operations in its mountain base at Yan'an.

Two groups of foreigners in Yan'an became early targets. The first was the Dixie Mission—an American military observation group sent to assess whether the Communists might be useful allies against Japan. The second was the Soviet presence, because even then, the relationship between Chinese and Soviet communists was complicated and marked by mutual suspicion. These early intelligence efforts were informal and opportunistic, but they established a tradition of using academic and diplomatic cover for collection operations.

The formal institution came later. In 1964, Premier Zhou Enlai—second only to Mao Zedong in the Communist hierarchy and the architect of much of China's foreign policy—ordered the creation of several colleges and research departments focused on international affairs. Various ministries established their own think tanks under this decree. CICIR was founded in 1965, initially answering to the Foreign Affairs Leading Group of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee.

Surviving the Cultural Revolution

What happened next is remarkable. Between 1966 and 1976, Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution, a decade of ideological frenzy that nearly tore China apart. Universities closed. Professors were denounced, beaten, and sent to labor camps. Intellectual work of any kind became dangerous. The country's education system essentially collapsed.

CICIR was the only international relations institute or university in China that remained open throughout.

This singular survival suggests just how deeply embedded CICIR was in the security apparatus. While Red Guards attacked anything that smelled of foreign influence, while other academics were forced to confess imaginary crimes at struggle sessions, CICIR's researchers continued their work. Someone very powerful was protecting them. The institution's intelligence function made it indispensable even during the height of anti-intellectual madness.

Coming Out of the Shadows

The 1980s brought China's great opening to the world under Deng Xiaoping. In 1980, CICIR was designated an "open" institution, authorized to engage with foreigners. This was not a move toward transparency—it was an expansion of collection opportunities. By meeting with foreign scholars, diplomats, and businesspeople, CICIR researchers could gather intelligence while maintaining academic cover.

The institute launched its journal, Contemporary International Relations, in 1981. Initially published irregularly, it became quarterly in 1986 and monthly in 1993. The journal publishes in both Chinese and English, extending its reach—and its usefulness as a vehicle for influencing foreign opinion.

When the Ministry of State Security was created in 1983 by merging parts of the Public Security apparatus with the Central Investigation Department, CICIR was folded into the new organization. The institutional dance continued in 1999, when CICIR was technically returned to the Central Committee's oversight while maintaining "strong organizational ties" to the MSS. A 2009 article in the Communist Party journal Liaowang called CICIR "subordinate" to the MSS, one of the rare occasions when Chinese state media acknowledged the relationship.

The 11th Bureau

Intelligence agencies typically organize themselves into numbered bureaus or departments, each with a specific function. The 11th Bureau of the MSS is responsible for intelligence analysis and assessment—taking raw information collected from various sources and transforming it into finished intelligence products for policymakers.

CICIR is, essentially, what the 11th Bureau looks like when it puts on a suit and attends academic conferences. The institute employs approximately 400 people, including about 150 senior research fellows—a substantial operation by any measure. It contains fifteen departments organized by region and function, plus two specialized divisions focusing on the Korean Peninsula and Central Asia, and eight research centers.

The primary customer for all this analysis is the Foreign Affairs Leading Group—now called the Central Foreign Affairs Commission—which coordinates China's foreign policy at the highest levels. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party oversees CICIR's operations, ensuring its work serves party objectives.

The Leadership Trail

The career trajectories of CICIR's leaders reveal its true nature. The most telling example is Geng Huichang, who served as CICIR's president from 1990 to 1993. Where did he go next? He became the Minister of State Security, serving from 2007 to 2016. The path from think tank president to intelligence chief makes perfect sense if you understand that both jobs were always in the same organization.

The scholar David Shambaugh, one of the leading American experts on China, observed that CICIR's leadership "all share lengthy and shadowy careers in the intelligence services." The presidents who followed Geng—Lu Zhongwei, Cui Liru, Ji Zhiye, Yuan Peng, and the current president Yang Mingjie—all emerged from this same murky background. They are intelligence officers first and academics second, regardless of what their business cards say.

What CICIR Actually Does

Strip away the intelligence function, and CICIR does all the things a normal think tank would do. It produces reports for government departments. It publishes research in academic journals. It carries out commissioned studies. It conducts joint research projects with domestic and foreign institutions. It promotes academic exchanges. It offers master's and doctoral programs—CICIR is authorized to grant actual graduate degrees.

The research spans all aspects of international affairs, but the primary focus is unmistakable: the United States and U.S.-China relations. This makes sense when you consider who the principal customer is. Chinese leadership wants to understand American intentions, capabilities, and weaknesses. CICIR exists largely to provide that understanding.

Cases have been documented of CICIR researchers traveling abroad and reporting intelligence back to the MSS. The academic conference invitation, the visiting scholar position, the joint research project—all these create legitimate reasons to be in foreign countries, meeting with people who might share useful information without realizing who they're really talking to.

Declining Influence

Interestingly, CICIR's influence on Chinese foreign policy has waned since the mid-1990s. Several factors contributed to this decline. Key senior researchers died or retired, taking their institutional knowledge and personal relationships with them. More importantly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has gained greater influence in the foreign policy process, partially displacing the intelligence community's role.

This shift reflects a broader trend in Chinese governance. As China has become more integrated into the international system, conventional diplomatic channels have become more important. The intelligence-driven approach that served well when China was isolated has partially given way to more traditional foreign ministry leadership.

But CICIR remains active and significant. Its large research staff and ability to produce rapid intelligence analysis still command attention at the highest levels of the Chinese government.

New Frontiers of National Security

In April 2021, CICIR established the Research Centre for a Holistic Approach to National Security, reflecting the current Chinese leadership's expansive view of security threats. Yuan Peng, then CICIR's president, served as the center's secretary general.

The concept of "holistic national security" is worth understanding because it shapes how China's leadership thinks. In traditional security thinking, threats come from foreign armies and weapons—things that can be seen and counted. Holistic national security expands this dramatically to include economic threats, cultural threats, environmental threats, information threats, and technological threats.

The center identified emerging concerns in what it calls "new frontiers"—polar regions, the deep sea, the internet, artificial intelligence, and outer space. These domains share a characteristic that troubles traditional security planners: they lack clear geographical borders and thus transcend conventional ideas of sovereignty. You cannot draw a line on a map that separates your part of cyberspace from someone else's. The rules that governed territorial security for centuries simply don't apply.

The Green Belt and Road

CICIR participates in the Green Belt and Road Initiative Center, which sounds like an environmental organization but has been described as a platform for influence operations targeting the international environmental movement. This represents a newer and subtler form of intelligence work—not stealing secrets but shaping foreign opinion.

The Belt and Road Initiative itself is China's massive infrastructure investment program spanning Asia, Africa, and Europe. The "green" variant presents these investments as environmentally friendly, appealing to international audiences concerned about climate change. CICIR's involvement suggests the initiative serves intelligence and influence objectives alongside its economic goals.

Why This Matters

Understanding what CICIR really is matters for anyone engaging with Chinese institutions on international affairs. The foreign diplomat meeting with CICIR researchers should know their conversation may be analyzed by intelligence officers and reported to the Central Committee. The American academic collaborating on a joint research project should understand that their Chinese counterparts may have obligations beyond scholarship. The journalist interviewing a CICIR expert should recognize the source's institutional incentives.

This is not to say that engagement with CICIR is never appropriate or that everything its researchers say is propaganda. The institute produces genuine scholarship. Its analysis of international affairs, while naturally reflecting Chinese perspectives, often contains valuable insights. The researchers are real experts with real knowledge.

But the academic presentation is a cover, not the reality. CICIR exists to serve Chinese intelligence objectives, and everything else is secondary.

The case of CICIR also illustrates a broader truth about China's approach to information and influence. The line between research, propaganda, and intelligence that Western institutions try to maintain—however imperfectly—simply does not exist in the Chinese system. Everything serves the party. The think tank, the university, the journal, the international conference—all are potential instruments of state power.

When David Rennie and other journalists analyze what "Beijing insiders" think about American policy, they should consider where those insights are coming from. The experts quoted in articles may hold genuine academic positions. They may produce legitimate research. They may even believe what they're saying.

But if they're affiliated with CICIR, their institution's primary customer isn't the academic community.

It's Chinese intelligence.