Chinese experts slam US hacking accusations

BEIJING - Chinese experts on Tuesday refuted latest accusations from the US side linking Chinese authorities to alleged hacking activities.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal last week claimed that they had detected cyber attacks from China-based hackers, while China had been regularly labeled a major origin for cyber threats to the United States. This was promptly rejected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"The accusations are unreasonable and irresponsible," said prof. Zhou Shijian, a senior researcher with the Center for US-China Relations of  Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Zhou noted that it is still hard to locate the ultimate source of hacking activities due to the transnational and the anonymous nature of cyber-attacks.

In addition, Zhou stressed that he found no reason for the Chinese government to support such activities, citing an official report that the country has become the biggest victim of Internet hacking.

A total of 12,513 Chinese websites including 1,167 governmental ones detected cyber attacks from April to December in 2011, according to a 2012 report issued by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), the country's primary computer security monitoring network,

The report noted that 11,851 overseas IPs were involved in the attacks, while 28.1 percent of the overseas hacking attackers were from the United States.

Prof. Liu Deliang, director of the Beijing-based Asia-Pacific Institute for Cyber-Law Studies, also found the accusations groundless "both in legal basis and logics."

Even if the attacking origins were in China, it could be results of individual behaviors, said Liu.

"In the end, the accusation is nothing more than an excuse for the United States to wage wars on network security, and also for its trade protectionism, economic and foreign sanctions purposes."

The accusation also demonstrated the intent of the United States to seek "hegemony" in cyber space, said Liu.