History
The University of International Relations was founded in 1949 to train foreign affairs cadres for the newly created People’s Republic of China. In 1961, the school merged with the Foreign Affairs College.
In 1964, then-Premier Zhou Enlai ordered the creation of colleges and university departments to focus on international affairs. Several government agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Liaison Department, established their own institutes for the study of international affairs. The University of International Affairs in Beijing was formally brought under the control of the Ministry of Public Security in 1965, and was charged with training intelligence agents for the Investigation Department (a precursor to the Ministry of State Security) and for Xinhua News Agency.
Like many schools in China, the University of International Affairs was shuttered during China's Cultural Revolution, and reopened in 1978. It was among the first institutions of higher education authorized by the Chinese government to offer academic degrees in China.
The Ministry of State Security was created in 1983 under Deng Xiaoping, and assumed the functions that previously belonged to the Central Investigation Department of the Ministry of Public Security. According to Stratfor Global Intelligence and the conservative think tank the Jamestown Foundation, the University is now bureaucratically subordinate to the Ministry of State Security.
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