U.S. government's large-scale cyber espionage causing escalating risks: Chinese FM

The U.S. government's large-scale, systematic and indiscriminate cyber espionage against countries around the world is seriously harming China's strategic security interests and could easily lead to huge risks of miscalculation, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday, after U.S. media outlets reported that the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks revealed that the U.S. had spied on 35 targets in Japan, including cabinet members and Mitsubishi corporation.

Documents released by Wikileaks list 35 telephone numbers targeted for interception by the U.S. National Security Agency. The surveillance extends back at least eight years, Wikileaks said.

What the U.S. has done is essentially the same as its pursuit of deploying intermediate-range missile and anti-missile systems in China’s neighborhood. In fact, it is trying to tie China’s neighboring countries to the chariot of the U.S., which will seriously damage China's strategic security interests and could lead to huge risks of miscalculation, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The U.S. government has not only carried out large-scale, systematic and indiscriminate cyber espionage against countries around the world, but also recently attempted to send cyber military forces to relevant countries in the name of “capability cooperation” and infiltrate their cyber systems. To this end, the U.S. has spread false information about so-called Chinese hackers through the media and other means to induce and coerce relevant countries, especially China’s neighboring countries, to accept the U.S. cyber military deployment, the statement said.

Considering that the U.S. has the most advanced cyber hacking technology in the world, this practice is tantamount to “inviting wolves into the house,” which will not only endanger the network security of relevant countries, but also make them a front base and stepping stone for the U.S. government to attack China without them even knowing it, the spokesperson said.

China opposes the deployment of cyber military forces by the U.S. in China’s neighboring countries and accuses the U.S. of spreading false information for this purpose. It is hoped that the international community, especially China’s neighbors, can make their own judgment on the real intentions of the U.S., the statement noted.