China labels U.S. peeping tom over defence spending
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China's Foreign Ministry likened U.S. doubts about Chinese defence spending on Thursday to a peeping tom poking through Beijing's underwear, describing the Asian giant as a benign neighbour and force for peace.
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Taiwan's military is desperately trying to whip up public support for a plan to spend billions on a huge U.S. weapons deal it says is essential to fending off a Chinese attack.
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(InfoWorld) - China Tuesday denied allegations that its militaryÂ hacked a Pentagon networkÂ in JuneÂ -- the second time in as many weeks that the country has responded to charges of sponsoring computer attacks. "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network," Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news service. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality," she added. Jiang was responding to a story published by the Financial Times this weekend that quoted American officials who said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was behind the June hack. One person familiar with the incident told the Financial Times that there was a "very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible. Other sources told the publication that Chinese hackers probed the Pentagon system for months before the attacks, which forced the U.S. to take the network offline for more than a week. The Department of Defense downplayed the attack, but declined to point the finger at any one country or group. The attack on an unclassified e-mail network in the Office of the Secretary of Defense required that the systems be taken offline, spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged today, but backup networks kicked in. He would not confirm that China hackers were behind the assault, saying only that it's often difficult to pinpoint the origin of an intrusion into computer systems. But the Pentagon did not stand idly by, he said. "Cyber or non-kinetic type threats to military computer networks are viewed as just as real and just as significant as physical or kinetic threats," Whitman said in a statement. "The department aggressively responds to deter all intrusions to defend what is known as the GIG, the global information grid." Just a month before the attack, the Department of Defense had issued a report claiming that the PLA fieldsÂ first-strike cyberwarfareÂ units whose arsenals include computer viruses they might unleash on enemy networks. When the Pentagon released its annual report on the state of China's military strength in late May, Jiang, the same foreign ministry spokeswoman who blasted the story today, took exception to its overall tone, although she didn't mention cyberwarfare specifically. The U.S., she said then, "continues to spread myth of the 'China Threat' by exaggerating China's military strength and expenses out of ulterior motives." Last week, Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, raised the same issue during her visit to Beijing after the popular weekly Der Spiegel said systems at several government ministries, including Merkel's own office, had beenÂ infected with spywareÂ planted by Chinese hackers. In statements made during a press conference Aug. 27, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called the reports of "grave concern" and promised that China would cooperate with Germany in its investigation. Today, Jiang seemed to echo Wen's comments. "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the law," she said. The Chinese military has been involved with hacking and viruses since at least the early 1990s, according to a 2000 paper written by Timothy Thomas of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. Coincidentally, the president of both China and the U.S. will face off this week in Australia during meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Hu Jintao, China's president, arrived in the country yesterday, while President George W. Bush arrived in Sydney today. Trade and climate change are expected to lead the agenda during the 21-country talks. Hu and Bush are scheduled to meet one-on-one during the conference. Â  Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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The United States warned China Monday that its announced military spending boost was &quot;inconsistent&quot; with peaceful growth and hinted that Beijing was understating its defense expenditures.
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China will boost military spending by 17.8 percent this year, a spokesman for the national legislature said Sunday, continuing more than a decade of double-digit annual increases that has stirred unease in Washington and some of China's neighbors.
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The United States urged China on Sunday  to be more transparent about its military build-up, in response  to Beijing's announcement it would boost defense spending by  17.8 percent this year.
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China said Sunday it will provide the United Nations with information on its military spending and arms deals for the first time in more than a decade, taking a step to address international concerns about the secrecy surrounding its defense spending and operations.
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China lashed out at the United States on Sunday, rejecting a Pentagon report about Beijing's defense buildup as exaggerated and misleading, and saying that such rhetoric threatened attempts to improve military and trade links.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday he did not view China as a strategic adversary of the United States despite Beijing's growing military budget.
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The head of U.S. forces in the Pacific pushed China on Tuesday for more transparency over its military build-up and suggested its growing might was aimed at Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its territory.
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China urges the United States to stop developing its military relations with Taiwan, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Tuesday.
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China defended its growing military prowess on Monday, saying it did not threaten the United States, and again urged Washington not to sell weapons to Taiwan.
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China's state media hit out at a US report on Beijing's military build-up, calling it misleading and insulting.
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Chinese state media on Sunday blasted a Pentagon report on Beijing's defence plans as distorted and insulting, and said the gap between wealthy countries' military might and China's is growing, not shrinking.
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China&#39;s government is playing down an editorial in an official newspaper that slammed President Bush&#39;s foreign policy on the eve of US elections.
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China on Thursday called U.S. allegations of Chinese spying "groundless" and urged the U.S. to stop its "Cold War thinking."
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Experts are concerned that some high-tech exports could help China modernize its military.