Beijing must take steps to investigate and halt cybercrime, a top US official said on Monday, warning the international community cannot tolerate the widespread hacking coming from China.
“This is not solely a national security concern or a concern of the US government,” US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told The Asia Society. “Increasingly, US businesses are speaking out about their serious concerns about sophisticated, targeted theft of confidential business information ... through cyberintrusions emanating from China at a very large scale.”
In his speech in New York, Donilon called on China to recognize that cybercrime poses a serious threat to the reputation of Chinese industry.
“Beijing should take serious steps to investigate and put a stop to these activities,” he said, adding that Washington wants “China to engage with us in a constructive direct dialogue to establish acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace.”
Last month, US lawmakers called for stiffer US action against Beijing for cyberspying and the massive theft of US industrial secrets, allegedly by the Chinese military.
Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said it was “beyond a shadow of a doubt” the Chinese military was behind a growing wave of hacking attacks on US businesses and institutions.
In January, the New York Times and other US media outlets reported they had come under hacking attacks from China, and a US congressional report last year named the country as “the most threatening actor in cyberspace.”
China has called such charges “groundless.”
However, Donilon warned: “The international community cannot afford to tolerate such activity from any country.”
He renewed a warning from US President Barack Obama that “we’ll take actions to protect our economy against cyberthreats.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in