China Denies Hacking Claim As US Charges Four

The Chinese Embassy in Washington has slammed as "irresponsible" a claim by the United States and its allies that China conducted a global cyberespionage campaign.

The United States was joined by Nato, the European Union, Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan and New Zealand in condemning the spying, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said posed "a major threat to our economic and national security."

Simultaneously, the US 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.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, called the accusations against China "irresponsible".

"The Chinese government and relevant personnel never engage in cyber attacks or cyber theft," Liu said in a statement.

While a flurry of statements from Western powers represents a broad alliance, cyber experts said the lack of consequences for China beyond the US 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 of Monday's statements even seemed to pull punches. While Washington and its close allies such as the United Kingdom and Canada held the Chinese state directly responsible for the hacking, others were more circumspect.

NATO merely said that its members "acknowledge" the allegations being leveled against Beijing by the US, Canada, and the UK. The European Union 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. (Reuters)