The Chinese foreign ministry has described the US and UK’s accusations that the country had sponsored a sweeping cyberspying campaign as “pure political manoeuvering.”

On Monday, state officials from either side of the Atlantic filed charges and imposed sanctions against China on grounds of a suspected mass cyberespionage campaign that impacted millions of people.

The US and UK have said that the campaign was carried out by the Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT31) hacking group, which has been classified as an arm of the Chinese Ministry of State Security by the White House and Downing Street.

US prosecutors have brought charges against seven alleged Chinese hackers, while UK officials meanwhile have accused APT31 of hacking China-critical British lawmakers, and said that a second group of Chinese spies hacked the country’s Electoral Commission in an action which compromised the data of millions of Brits.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said: “It is pure political manoeuvring for the United States and the United Kingdom to rehash the so-called cyberattacks carried out by China and to sanction Chinese individuals and entities,


China on Tuesday urged the U.S. and Britain to stop politicising the issue of cybersecurity, slandering and smearing China and imposing unilateral sanctions on the country.

"China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it.”

The Chinese Embassy in London had earlier called the charges "completely fabricated and malicious slanders."

In his statement, Lin added that previously provided “technical clarifications and responses to the so-called APT31 information submitted by the British” showed that “the evidence provided by the British side is insufficient and the relevant conclusions lack professionalism.”

The US and UK are not alone in accusing China of state-sponsored cyber attacks, with the government of New Zealand accusing the country of being involved in a 2021 hack on its parliament.

Tensions between the west and China are at a high, with technology emerging as a battleground between the powers. Beijing and Washington are locked in a microprocessor arms race, while the US House of Representatives has passed a bill which would ban TikTok – the social media company owned by China-based ByteDance – unless its parent company divests its US business.

---