The indictment was brought by the prosecutor's office in Tianjin city, near Beijing, following an investigation underway since late 2013. Based on previous cases, a suspended death sentence is likely. Convictions are all but certain in Chinese courts, which are controlled by the ruling Communist Party, in which Zhou served at the most senior levels.
No date was given for a trial, which state media said last month would be open. Despite that pledge, China regularly restricts court access and could use the state secrets charge to limit coverage, particularly since Zhou had access to sensitive information on other senior leaders.
The charges span Zhou's long career from senior positions in the state-run oil sector and southwest Sichuan province to running the Ministry of Public Security and a seat on the Party's top echelon of power, the Politburo Standing Committee, the Tianjin prosecution office said in a statement carried by state news agency Xinhua.
Zhou's indictment accuses him of seeking profits for himself and others, and "illegally accepting a huge amount of other people's property." Earlier Xinhua reports said he "committed adultery with a number of women and traded his power for sex and money," but such illicit relations are offences against Party discipline rather than criminal law. He was expelled from the Party last year.
Before retiring in 2012, Zhou had overseen a significant expansion in the security operation, as Chinese authorities targeted any individual or group considered a threat to the party's 66-year-long monopoly on power.
Zhou, 72, is the most visible catch under the anti-graft crackdown led by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping, who broke an unwritten rule that members of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee remain off-limits to charges of wrongdoing, even when retired, to preserve a public image of unity and trustworthiness.
Xi's campaign has proved highly popular with many Chinese citizens, although it is not seeking to reform the system that allows graft to flourish. China has no independent anti-corruption agency, independent judiciary or free media. Instead, it relies on the party to supervise itself.
Civil rights activists in the New Citizens' Movement, a loosely knit lobbying group, have been jailed for calling on officials to declare their assets publicly.
There was strong online interest in the case in China on Friday. "I'm dying to know what kind of state secrets he has leaked," Xie Jun, an editor at Shanxi Evening News, wrote on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog.
"Will the trial be open to public? It's a crucial time for building clean government in our country," read a post on the official Weibo of the Zijin Tianxia IT park in Nanjing, eastern China.
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