Yidongyuan in the context of "Haidian, Beijing"

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⭐ Core Definition: Yidongyuan

Yidongyuan (Chinese: 颐东苑社区; pinyin: Yídōngyuàn shèqū; lit.'East Summer Palace Garden') is a government compound in Beijing, China which serves as the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security (MSS). The facility consists of an office complex and residential community occupying a full city block in the Xiyuan area of Beijing's Haidian District. Closed to the public, and separated by a perimeter wall, the secretive nondescript facility is believed to be staffed by approximately 10,000 intelligence officers and support staff.

Unlike foreign counterparts such as the American CIA's George Bush Center for Intelligence, the SIS Building housing the British MI6, or the Lubyanka Building of Soviet KGB and Russian FSB, Yidongyuan is distinct in housing employees and their families in apartments on site.

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Yidongyuan in the context of Ministry of State Security (China)

The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is the principal civilian intelligence and security service of the People's Republic of China, responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and political security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). One of the largest and most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it maintains powerful semi-autonomous branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China. The ministry's headquarters, Yidongyuan, is a large compound in Beijing's Haidian district.

The origins of the MSS date to the beginnings of the CCP's Central Special Branch, replaced by the Central Committee Society Department from 1936 through the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949. In 1955, the department was replaced with the Central Committee Investigation Department, which existed in various configurations through the Cultural Revolution to 1983, when it was merged with counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to form the MSS.

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