| Summary/Abstract |
The conventional story of Chinese intelligence follows two threads. The first narrative is Kang Sheng's prostitution of the intelligence services in support Mao Zedong's efforts to consolidate control over the Chinese Communist Party from the 1930s through the Cultural Revolution. For acts that would earn him the moniker of “China's [Lavrentiy] Beria,” Kang helped Mao, and later the Gang of Four, unleash a Stalin-esque terror against the Great Helmsman's rivals. The second narrative is China's supposedly unique approach to collecting intelligence by eschewing professionals and laying down a blanket of amateur collectors. Likened to a directed band of beachcombers, China encourages its citizens to go forth and, when they return, Chinese intelligence officers await to collect the loose grains of sand and assemble them into a coherent mosaic of intelligence. But these two threads conceal more than they reveal about the modern Chinese intelligence services and their operations.
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