To say that the Us Intelligence community as a whole has been paying little attention to the Chinese secret services is at best optimistic. No major or systematic studies have been published on this topic and the available literature is with few exceptions written by non-American scholars. Moreover, the media coverage and the fiction industry, both important vehicles of information, rightful and false at the same time, in matter of espionage, have devoted very little space to the phenomenon and the public is generally not be able to name even one Chinese (person or institution) involved in it. The same is not true on the opposite side, where detailed information about the CIA and other American institutions are easily available on Chinese websites like Baidu, as a simple word search can prove. Still, as China is emerging as the world second power, there are indications that the strategic partnership with the US may evolve in something more aggressive. The aim of this paper is to shed some light and examine what it is known about the intelligence service of a country which used espionage since ancient times and that can be considered a true virtuoso at it. Finally, it will try to propose some explanations and likely scenarios. As SunZi observed in his Art of War, not knowing the enemy is a sure recipe for disaster. The Chinese will not make this mistake.
