The US has fabricated evidence to back cyber espionage accusations against Chinese military officials, China’s Defense and Foreign Ministries said.
“In the field of internet technology and infrastructure, the
US is blessed with an advantage, so fabricating some so-called
‘evidence’ is certainly no hardship," Chinese Defense
Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said, as quoted by Reuters.
Last week, the US Justice Department (DOJ) accused five Chinese
officers of hacking into American companies to steal trade
secrets and pass them on to Chinese state-owned enterprises.
The summary of the alleged conduct released by the DOJ contained
detailed information about the alleged perpetrators and their
activities, which included domain names and email addresses used
in the attacks.
But Geng compared Washington's evidence of Chinese cyber spying
to its justification for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Back then, the Americans stated that Baghdad was in possession of
weapons of mass destruction, but the accusations later appeared
to be baseless.
“The international community has not seen the US’ so-called
proof. They've only seen the massive conflict and hardship
endured by the people of Iraq," Geng stressed.
The harsh comments from the Defense Ministry were echoed by the
Chinese Foreign Ministry, which also held a briefing on Thursday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gan used the same wording, saying
that Washington's proof of Chinese cyber espionage is
“fabricated.”
“We have repeatedly said that the Chinese government,
military and relevant personnel have never engaged or
participated in cyber espionage activities,” Qin said, as
quoted by Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Washington “shouldn’t be rigorous on others, while being
lenient itself,” the spokesman stressed, reminding of the
country's large-scale cyber snooping activities revealed by
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
On Wednesday, a Chinese general labeled the US “the world's
No.1 cyber thief” in terms of both military and political
intelligence.
“It is ridiculous for the US side to say that cyber espionage
on political and military intelligence is common practice while
the theft of commercial secrets is illegal,” Sun Jianguo,
deputy chief of General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation
Army, told China Daily newspaper.
He described Washington’s actions in the Chinese cyber espionage
affair as “a thief crying 'stop thief,'” adding that it
seriously violates the norms of international relations and
hampers China-US relations.
Earlier this week, it was reported that state-owned Chinese companies will end
their work with US consulting companies such as McKinsey and
Boston Consulting Group, over fears they are spying on behalf of
the US government.
China's leadership has also reportedly urged banks to stop using IBM servers and replace
them with local-made machines amid fears that the nation’s
financial security might be compromised via the US-based
company’s servers.