Question: On 30 March, The Sunday Times published an article, accusing China of conducting cyberespionage and cyberattacks against the West, and claiming that the West should be warned of China's destruction of critical Western services through hackers. What is your comment?
Embassy Spokesperson: The author of this article simply repeated the same old rhetoric of the US and British intelligence agencies, parroting groundless slanders and smears against China. We firmly oppose and strongly condemn this.
For some time now, the US, driven by geopolitical purpose, has been instigating the Five Eyes, the biggest intelligence network in the world led by it, to make up and spread disinformation of “threats from Chinese cyberintruders.” More recently, the US government has conspired with the UK to slander China by saying that they are under cyberattacks from groups of cyberintruders “affiliated to the Chinese government” and announced unilateral sanctions against China on that pretext. This is the typical act of a thief crying catch thief. We have publicly refuted such unreasonable accusations made by the US and the UK, and will take necessary measures to resolutely defend our legitimate rights and interests.
As it is well known to all, the US, the notorious “empire of hackers”, has long been committing large-scale espionage activities against nations worldwide and even its allies, and illegally acquiring massive amounts of data of their politicians, enterprises and citizens, with the help of its advantages in information technology and the internet resources of the UK and other Five Eyes countries.
Countless cases of cyberattacks and espionage activities exposed by the global media in recent years have shown that those attacks, mainly conducted by the US and the UK, are characterised by a clear division of labour, advanced technology and rigorous organisation. At the same time, the US and the UK are speeding up cyber militarisation on all aspects by taking frequent cyber military operations and further substantiating their “preemptive” and “cyber deterrence” strategy, posing a severe threat to global cybersecurity. The US and the UK have carried out massive cyberattacks and data theft activities against China. In fact, China is the biggest victim of global cyberattacks.
China has always opposed and fought all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with the law, and has never encouraged, supported or condoned hacker attacks. We put forward the Global Initiative on Data Security as early as four years ago, calling on all States to join hands in forging a cyberspace featuring peace, security, openness, cooperation and order, and standing against ICT activities that impair or steal important data of other States' critical infrastructure or the use of data to conduct activities that undermine other States' national security and public interests.
We urge The Sunday Times to follow basic professional ethics and live up to its social responsibility, stop publishing disinformation, and stop playing by the Cold War script to stage China-smearing farces.
