Chinese tech giant Alibaba yesterday denied it helps Beijing target the US, saying that a recent news report was “completely false.”
The Financial Times yesterday reported that Alibaba “provides tech support for Chinese military ‘operations’ against [US] targets,” a White House memo provided to the newspaper showed.
Alibaba hands customer data, including “IP addresses, WiFi information and payment records,” to Chinese authorities and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the report cited the memo as saying.
Photo: Reuters
The Financial Times said it could not independently verify the claims, adding that the White House believes the actions threaten US security.
An Alibaba Group spokesperson said “the assertions and innuendos in the article are completely false,” calling the memo a “malicious PR [public relations] operation [that] clearly came from a rogue voice looking to undermine [US] President [Donald] Trump’s recent trade deal with China.”
The dispute highlighted persisting suspicions between Beijing and Washington, which are locked in competition for technological superiority.
Since returning to office, Trump has reignited a fierce trade war with China. After months of tit-for-tat tariffs, he and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) agreed to a one-year truce last month.
A spokesman for China’s embassy in the US also denied the memo’s claims.
“The Chinese government... will never require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in foreign countries in violation of local laws,” embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇) wrote on X.
The report added to growing concern in Washington about Beijing’s potential use of advanced technology to spy.
Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic on Thursday said it had detected and disrupted what it described as the first documented cyberespionage campaign conducted largely autonomously by AI.
The activities were attributed to a “Chinese state-sponsored group” designated as GTG-1002, Anthropic said.
Asked about the report, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) said he was “not familiar with the specifics,” adding that Beijing had consistently fought hacking activities.
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