China’s Communist Party mouthpiece has rebuked last weeks accusations that hacking attacks on US news media were linked to Beijing and hit out at Washington for fanning “fear of China”.
The People’s Daily echoed vehement rejections from the government over allegations on Chinese hackers’ attempts to breach systems of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, allegedly in response to the newspapers’ coverage on China.
“America keeps labeling China as hackers, simply playing up the rhetoric of the ‘China treat’ in cyberspace, providing new justification for America’s strategy of containing China,” the article said.
“IP addresses simply do not constitute sufficient evidence to confirm origins of hackers,” according to the paper.
Beijing said that China was also targeted by hackers, claiming that there were attacks from US-based IP addresses on Chinese websites in December. There were attacks from 3,000 foreign IP addresses, according to the government, adding that “China did not draw simple inference or hasty conclusions about the attack source.”
A US congressional report last year raised concerns on the increasing cyberattacks on US systems by China, calling the country “the most threatening actor in cyberspace”, AFP reports.
