China rebuts US accusation of cyber attacks

BEIJING - China on Thursday rebutted an accusation made by the United States of cyber attacks carried out by the Chinese military, urging the US to deal with its own spying scandal.

Responding to a draft of an annual report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to Congress, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily press briefing, "China has been the victim of cyber attacks."

The draft said there are "no indications the public exposure of Chinese cyber espionage in technical detail throughout 2013 has led China to change its attitude toward the use of cyber espionage to steal proprietary economic and trade information."

Hong said the Chinese government has always opposed to cyber attacks and called on the international community to build a peaceful, safe and open cyberspace.

"Under the circumstances of the spying scandal, should the United States have real interests on cyber security, it should not beat around the bush," said Hong.

The Obama Administration has come under increasing criticism and pressure from the international community since June after former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden exposed its secret spying programs, which monitor worldwide phone calls and Internet communications under the excuse of counter-terrorism.

According to media reports, the NSA had monitored the cell phones of 35 world leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, and collected data on tens of millions of phone calls in European countries.

Washington has promised to conduct a review of its spying operations worldwide as part of damage control efforts.