BEIJING, MAY 20 -
China
on Tuesday warned the United States was jeopardizing military ties by
charging five Chinese officers with cyberspying and tried to turn the
tables on Washington by calling it "the biggest attacker of China 's cyberspace."
China
announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in a
joint cybersecurity task force over Monday's charges that officers stole
trade secrets from major American companies. The Foreign Ministry
demanded Washington withdraw the indictment.
The testy exchange marked an escalation in tensions over U.S. complaints that China
's military uses its cyber warfare skills to steal foreign trade
secrets to help the country's vast state-owned industrial sector. A U.S.
security firm, Mandiant, said last year it traced attacks on American
and other companies to a military unit in Shanghai.
The charges are the biggest challenge to relations since a meeting last
summer between President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi
Jinping, in Sunnylands, California.
Ties already were under strain due to conflicts over what Washington
says are provocative Chinese moves to assert claims over disputed areas
of the East and South China
Seas. Beijing complains the Obama administration's effort to shift
foreign policy emphasis toward Asia and expand its military presence in
the region is emboldening Japan and other neighbors and fueling tension.
Beijing has denied conducting commercial spying and said it is a victim
of computer hacking, but has given little indication it investigates
foreign complaints.
"The Chinese government and Chinese military as well as relevant
personnel have never engaged and never participated in so-called cyber
theft of trade secrets," said a foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, at
a news briefing. "What the United States should do no is withdraw its
indictment."
The Ministry of Defense warned that the U.S. accusations would chill gradually warming relations between the two militaries.
"The United States, by this action, betrays its commitment to building
healthy, stable, reliable military-to-military relations and causes
serious damage to mutual trust," it said.
Despite the pointed language, damage to U.S.-Chinese relations is
likely to be limited, with little change in trade or military links,
because Beijing realizes the indictment of the five officers is
symbolic, said Shen Dingli, a director of the Center for American
Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. He has close ties to China 's foreign policy establishment.
Beijing is unlikely to engage in tit-for-tat retaliation such as
issuing its own indictments of American soldiers and probably will go
ahead with plans to take part in U.S.-hosted naval exercises next month,
Shen said. He said cybersecurity cooperation is likely to be suspended
indefinitely, but that should have little impact because the joint group
achieved little in its three meetings.
"Political, security and commercial espionage will always happen," Shen
said. "The U.S. will keep spying on Chinese companies and leaders, so
why can't China do the same?"
The Cabinet's Internet information agency said Chinese networks and
websites have been the target of thousands of hacking attacks from
computers in the United States.
"The U.S. is the biggest attacker of China
's cyber space," Xinhua said, citing a statement by the agency. "The
U.S. attacks, infiltrates and taps Chinese networks belonging to
governments, institutions, enterprises, universities and major
communication backbone networks."
Monday's indictment said the People's Liberation Army officers targeted
U.S. makers of nuclear and solar technology, stealing confidential
business information, sensitive trade secrets and internal
communications. The targets were Alcoa World Alumina, Westinghouse
Electric Co., Allegheny Technologies, U.S. Steel Corp., the United
Steelworkers Union and SolarWorld.
The Justice Department said the charges should be a national "wake-up
call" about cyber intrusions. American authorities have previously
announced details of cyberattacks from China
but Monday's indictment was the first accusation to name individuals.
The Justice Department issued wanted posters with the officer's photos
on them.
The new indictment attempts to distinguish spying for national security
purposes — which the U.S. admits doing — from economic espionage
intended to gain commercial advantage for private companies or
industries.
The United States denies spying for commercial advantage, though
documents released by former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden said the NSA broke into the computers of Brazil's main
state-owned oil company, Petrobras. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff
said if that was true, then the motive would be to gather economic
information.
" China
has already expounded its stance and is strongly opposed to stealing
commercial secrets," said Xiong Zhiyong, a foreign relations specialist
at Tsinghua University. "I think there is no difference between China
and the United States in allowing cyberspying for national security,
though there is no open announcement by the Chinese government."
The defendants are believed to be in China and it was unclear whether any might ever be turned over to the U.S. for prosecution.
No comments:
Post a Comment