China’s internet tsar has lashed out at US cyber hacking allegations against his country, saying it was in fact the “world’s largest victim” of the practice.
Lu Wei, who boasts the imposing title of minister of cyberspace, told a Beijing press conference that in the past month, 10,000 websites had been hacked in China, along with 80 per cent of government sites. He said the majority of the attacks originated in the US.
“There are some who accuse China of hacking, and here I must stress that we do not permit hacking of others’ networks to attain information,” said Mr Lu, adding: “China is the world’s main victim of cyber hacking.”
US authorities have consistently alleged the contrary: that China-based internet hackers – some with clear links to the government – have been responsible for internet-based espionage as well as attempts to disable US networks. In May, the US indicted five Chinese nationals on cyber espionage charges, saying they were soldiers in China’s army.
Mr Lu said smoothing out the Sino-US relationship was a priority and, to this end, the government had organised a conference, to be held in the scenic town of Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, near the headquarters of ecommerce giant Alibaba, for three days starting on November 19.
Key government figures, as well as the chairmen of China’s three largest companies – Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent – had all agreed to attend, he said. The goal would be to “showcase the results of the first 20 years of the development of the Chinese internet”.
Despite the war of words between Beijing and Washington, he stressed the majority of the guests at the Wuzhen summit would be from the US.
As to China’s internet restrictions, Mr Lu took a position, common for Chinese officials, who do not publicly confirm the existence of wide-ranging censorship popularly known as the “great firewall”.
“I have never tried to log on to Facebook, so I don’t know if it has been shut off,” he answered in response to a question about why the US social networking site had been blocked in China.
“We will not allow foreign companies to take over the market, take the Chinese people’s money and cause harm to the Chinese people,” he said, when asked vaguely about restrictions on foreign internet sites. (www.chinainout.com)
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