As the most notorious surveillance country, the U.S. indictment of Chinese military officers seems almost insolent in a world still reeling at the scope of the U.S. spy network.
Everyone knows that the U.S. itself is the biggest cyber bully, conducting sweeping surveillance around the world. Documents leaked by former Central Intelligence Agency contractor Edward Snowden detailed the National Security Agency's (NSA) surveillance activities around the globe, from foreign leaders to ordinary citizens.
Intelligence from Snowden showed that about 70 million French phone calls were collected by the NSA from December 2012 to January 2013. More than 120 world leaders have been under U.S. surveillance since 2009.
China is one of Big Brother's victims. The U.S. routinely attacks, infiltrates and taps Chinese networks belonging to governments, institutions, enterprises, universities and major telecom backbone networks.
Latest data from the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Coordination Center of China showed that 135 host computers in the U.S. carried 563 phishing pages targeting Chinese websites that led to 14,000 phishing operations from March 19 to May 18.
The center found 2,016 IP addresses in the U.S. had implanted backdoors in 1,754 Chinese websites, involving 57,000 backdoor attacks in the same period.
The indictment is based on fabricated facts, grossly violates the basic norms governing international relations and has harmed China-U.S. ties.
In 2013 China sought talks with the U.S. on policing cyber space through a bilateral working group, despite the shadow cast over relations by Snowden's disclosures of U.S. electronic surveillance in China.
The U.S. intentionally jeopardized the trust between the world's two biggest economies and China on Monday announced the suspension of the China-U.S. Cyber Working Group which was scheduled to met in July in Beijing.
The U.S. should clean its own house before pointing fingers at others.- Xinhua
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Commentary: Cyber-spying charges against Chinese officers an indictment of U.S. hypocrisy
BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- The United States on Monday plunged itself into blatant hypocrisy as it slapped some fabricated cyber-espionage charges against five Chinese military officers.
The baseless accusation against the Chinese personnel of hacking into U.S. companies to steal trade secrets for Chinese state-owned firms is a telling indictment of Washington's double standard on cyber-security. Full Story
Washington plays victim of espionage
The US Justice Department on Monday filed criminal charges against five Chinese army officers, claiming that they helped Chinese firms steal business information on US companies and that all of them came from Unit 61398 of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Since February last year, the US government has been accusing the same unit of theft of US trade secrets.
The Department of Justice issued "wanted" posters for the officers with their photos. The Wall Street Journal stated in an article "the indictment may act instead as a public effort to name and shame the suspects."
The 48-page indictment providing details of the officers looks "real." Nevertheless, the specific country that made the allegations is the one that spies both home and abroad with the PRISM program of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed by Edward Snowden, former NSA contractor. Washington was condemned by international public opinion and therefore its pretentious accusation against Chinese army officers is ridiculous.
The US government's claims that Chinese army officers have gathered US business intelligence in an organized way are beyond our imagination. It's fresh to us that Chinese military and civil companies have such a close relationship.
Perhaps all countries believe the US is the No.1 intelligence power. It has been taking bold steps in cyber espionage, as was shown by Snowden. Washington has also helped the rest of the world comprehend the meaning of "intelligence superpower" by not only collecting overseas information but also playing the victim role.
The materials disclosed by Snowden showed that the US hacked into China's backbone networks, universities, government departments and other organs. And the White House still owes an apology to Beijing. Interpol should have ordered the arrest of designers and implementers of the PRISM program but they did not. Therefore the US is acting so shameless by posting photos of the five Chinese army officers.
It appears that Washington has mistaken its domestic law for a law applicable to the international community by directly indicting active-duty Chinese army officers. It has severely infringed their human rights. Despite the relatively weak awareness and ability of Chinese to safeguard their legal rights, the five officers should file a lawsuit against the US government for damaging their reputation. China should not tolerate the US' malignant accusation this time. In announcing the suspension of activities of the China-US Cyber Working Group, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the right move. But we should take further actions.
Beijing has published US computer attacks on China's networks, which, however, lack detailed information except figures. We should encourage organizations and individuals whose rights have been infringed to stand up and sue Washington. Regarding the issue of network security, the US is such a mincing rascal that we must stop developing any illusions about it. - Global Times
Cyberthief crying wolf
The US department of justice's decision to charge five People's Liberation Army officers for "business spying" is ill-advised, if not downright stupid.
The initial response from Beijing is that the charge is a pompous farce that will in no way advance American interests.
In addition to a flat denial of US accusations, which lack any credible evidence, Beijing has struck back, presenting proof that the US is "the present-day world's biggest cyberthief", and "the foremost state sponsor of cyberattacks on China".
The statistical information about US cyber intrusions the Chinese authorities produced makes it difficult for Washington to proclaim its own innocence.
The US indictment appears particularly awkward because Washington is simply rubbing salt into its bleeding wound from Edward Snowden's revelations. It is common knowledge that China, its military in particular, is the biggest online target of the omnipresent US National Security Agency and US Cyber Command.
It is thus a matter of course that Beijing should call the indictment a cock-and-bull story and a thief crying catch thief.
Nor can Washington expect any sympathy from Chinese Internet users. To them, the indictment is but an additional footnote to US hypocrisy.
The charges are said to underscore a longtime Obama administration goal to prosecute state-sponsored cyber threats. Yet the Snowden leaks seem to indicate that the NSA and US Cyber Command are the most formidable state-sponsored cyber threats in today's world. If they can be exonerated for what they have done and are still doing, blaming anyone else is shameless double standards.
US Attorney General Eric Holder should know very well that an indictment like this has little chance of being executed. Those charged are far away in their home country, where neither the government nor the people accept the legitimacy of the US charges. More important, the charge itself is flawed in both moral and jurisprudential terms.
It is yet to be seen if Beijing will make a tit-for-tat response by prosecuting specific Americans, which will be fully justifiable. But Beijing has already determined to suspend the work of a joint panel on Internet security, on the grounds that the Americans lack sincerity in the dialogue to establish a cooperative approach to cyber security.
The indictment will prove a sorrowful miscalculation, because Washington has nothing to win and a lot to lose.- China Daily
China urges U.S. to drop charges against military officers
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