China urges US to immediately cease malicious cyber activities

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday the United States is worthy of the name of the "empire of wiretapping" and "empire of secret stealing," urging the country to stop its malicious cyber activities immediately.

According to relevant reports, multiple Chinese scientific research institutions have been under cyber attack from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), and the NSA has installed Trojan horse programs inside at least over a hundred important information systems in China. To date, many such programs are still running and sending intelligence back to the NSA.

"China condemns such malicious cyber activities by the U.S. government. We demand that the U.S. offers an explanation and immediately stop such irresponsible behavior," spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily press briefing.

Noting the United States as a well-known habitual offender regarding cyber secret stealing, Zhao said that in 2020, China captured more than 42 million malicious computer program samples. And 53.1 percent of the programs from overseas were traced to the United States, Zhao said citing a previous report from China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team website.

Zhao said the United States doesn't even let its own citizens off the hook concerning cyber secret stealing. He said that over the past year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 3.4 million searches on digital data of U.S. citizens without any warrant, according to a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Zhao pointed out that the relevant report also disclosed that Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has coordinated with the United States to conduct cyber attacks and steal secrets. "This shows the United States and its core allies have become the axis of global cyber secret stealing."

Zhao said that in the face of doubts and opposition from the international community, the United States did not restrain its large-scale cyber secret stealing behavior. Instead, it expanded its national defense budget regarding cyber activities, enlarged cyber troops, and conducted various cyber warfare drills.