The United States was joined by NATO, the European Union,
Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and New Zealand in condemning the spying,
which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said posed "a major threat to
our economic and national security".
Simultaneously, the U.S. Department of Justice charged four
Chinese nationals - three security officials and one contract hacker - with
targeting dozens of companies, universities and government agencies in the
United States and abroad.
China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the
accusation was "fabricated out of thin air" for political goals.
"China will absolutely not accept this," he told a
regular news conference in Beijing on Tuesday. China does not engage in
cyberattacks, and the technical details Washington has provided "do not
constitute a complete chain of evidence", he said.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Liu
Pengyu, called the accusations against China "irresponsible."
At an event about the administration's infrastructure plan,
U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters: "My understanding is that the
Chinese government, not unlike the Russian government, is not doing this
themselves, but are protecting those who are doing it. And maybe even
accommodating them being able to do it."
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was later asked at her
daily briefing why Biden did not directly blame the Chinese government in his
response to a reporter's question.
"That was not the intention he was trying to project.
He takes malicious cyber activity incredibly seriously," she said, adding
that the White House did not differentiate between Russia and China when it
comes to cyber attacks.
"We are not holding back, we are not allowing any
economic circumstance or consideration to prevent us from taking actions ...
Also we reserve the option to take additional action," she said.
While a flurry of statements from Western powers represents
a broad alliance, cyber experts said the lack of consequences for China beyond
the U.S. indictment was conspicuous. Just a month ago, summit statements by G7
and NATO warned China and said it posed threats to the international order.
Adam Segal, a cybersecurity expert at the Council on Foreign
Relations in New York, called Monday's announcement a "successful effort
to get friends and allies to attribute the action to Beijing, but not very
useful without any concrete follow-up".
SOME CIRCUMSPECT STATEMENTS
Some of Monday's statements even seemed to pull punches.
While Washington and its close allies such as Britain and Canada held the
Chinese state directly responsible for the hacking, others were more
circumspect.
NATO merely said its members "acknowledge" the
allegations being leveled against Beijing by the U.S., Canada, and Britain. The
EU said it was urging Chinese officials to rein in "malicious cyber
activities undertaken from its territory" - a statement that left open the
possibility that the Chinese government was itself innocent of directing the
espionage.
The United States was much more specific, formally
attributing intrusions such as the one that affected servers running Microsoft
Exchange earlier this year to hackers affiliated with China's Ministry of State
Security. Microsoft had already blamed China.
U.S. officials said the scope and scale of hacking
attributed to China had surprised them, along with Beijing's use of
"criminal contract hackers" who Blinken said carry out both
state-sponsored activities and cybercrime for their own financial gain.
U.S. security and intelligence agencies outlined more than
50 techniques and procedures that "China state-sponsored actors" use
against U.S. networks, a senior administration official said.
Washington in recent months have accused Russian hackers of
a string of ransomware attacks in the United States.
The senior administration official said U.S. concerns about
Chinese cyber activities have been raised with senior Chinese officials, and
further action to hold China accountable was not being ruled out.
The United States and China have already been at loggerheads
over trade, China's military buildup, disputes about the South China Sea, a
crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong and treatment of the Uyghurs in
the Xinjiang region.
Blinken cited the Justice Department indictments as an
example of how the United States will impose consequences.
The defendants and officials in the Hainan State Security
Department, a regional state security office, tried to hide the Chinese
government's role in the information theft by using a front company, according
to the indictment.
The campaign targeted trade secrets in industries including
aviation, defense, education, government, healthcare, biopharmaceutical and
maritime industries, the Justice Department said.
Victims were in Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Germany,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, the
United Kingdom and the United States.
"These criminal charges once again highlight that China
continues to use cyber-enabled attacks to steal what other countries make, in
flagrant disregard of its bilateral and multilateral commitments," Deputy
U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in the statement. -Reuters
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