China issues bounty for hackers it says are linked to Taiwan , Asia News
BEIJING — The public security bureau in the Chinese city of Guangzhou has put up an undisclosed bounty for more than 20 people it suspects carried out cyber attacks in China, the official news agency Xinhua said on Thursday (June 5), stepping up accusations against Taipei.
The authorities said the hackers were linked to the Taiwan government and named one of them as Ning Enwei. There was no information on the size of the bounty in Chinese state media.
Chinese authorities accused Taiwan of organising, planning and premeditating attacks on key sectors such as military, aerospace, government departments, energy and transportation, maritime affairs, science and technology research firms in China as well as in special administration regions Hong Kong and Macau, Xinhua said.
Xinhua, citing a cybersecurity report, said the Taiwan "information, communication and digital army" has co-operated with US anti-Chinese forces to conduct public opinion and cognitive warfare against China, secretly instigate revolution and attempt to disrupt public order in China.
Taiwan's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A senior Taiwan security official told Reuters that the Chinese allegations were invented, saying Beijing was trying to shift the focus from Czech and European scrutiny over alleged Chinese hacking activities there.
"They fabricated a false narrative to shift the focus. It's a very typical behaviour by the Chinese Communist Party," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter.
"No amount of storytelling can change the fact that Beijing is not only a regional trouble maker, but also a common international threat to the online world."
China also said Taiwan had longstanding co-operation with the US National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies for the United States' "Asia-Pacific Strategy", calling it Taiwan's attempt to gain independence through relying on the United States.
"The US intelligence department has long provided personnel training and technical equipment support for Taiwan's 'information, communication and digital army', and many police stations have sent 'hunting' teams to Taiwan, to launch a cyber attacks on China," according to a social media post by an account linked to Chinese state television.
Last week authorities in Guangzhou, the capital of the southern Guangdong province, attributed a cyberattack on an unnamed technology company to the Taiwan government, saying Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party supported the "overseas hacker organisation" responsible.
The accusation prompted Taiwan to blame China for peddling false information, saying it was China who was carrying out hacking against the island.
China views Taiwan as its own territory. Taiwan's democratically elected government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims.
Chinese courts and legal bodies have no jurisdiction in separately governed Taiwan, whose government has repeatedly complained about Beijing's "long armed jurisdiction" efforts.
[[nid:718714]]
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
34 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Xi-Trump phone call: More trade talk to come but US-China tensions remain
US President Donald Trump told reporters that he had accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit China. PHOTO: REUTERS – Chinese President Xi Jinping's 90-minute call with his US counterpart Donald Trump amid high bilateral tensions will allow him to project confidence at home, but the road ahead for trade talks remains fraught with obstacles, observers say. The much-anticipated phone conversation on June 5 came after both countries accused each other of violating a temporary truce that top negotiators had sealed in Geneva less than a month earlier. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
36 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Russia asks UN agency to help solve question of US fuel at Ukraine nuclear plant
FILE PHOTO: A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the bank of Kakhovka Reservoir near the town of Nikopol amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Alina Smutko/File Photo Russia asks UN agency to help solve question of US fuel at Ukraine nuclear plant MOSCOW - Russia asked the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday to mediate between Moscow and Washington to resolve the question of what to do with U.S. nuclear fuel stored at a Ukrainian power plant controlled by Russian forces. Russia wants to restart the idled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which lies near one of the front lines of the war in Ukraine and once generated a fifth of Ukraine's electricity. The fuel question is one of numerous issues standing in the way. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Reuters this week that restarting it was currently impossible because of the lack of a stable power supply and water for cooling. Russian nuclear energy chief Alexei Likhachev said after meeting Grossi on Friday that Russia was willing either to use the fuel, supplied by U.S. company Westinghouse, or to remove it entirely and return it to the United States. Westinghouse and U.S. energy officials had previously raised intellectual property concerns with Russia in connection with the fuel issue, he said in televised comments. State news agency RIA quoted Grossi as saying the IAEA was willing to mediate. Russia and Ukraine have each accused the other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, raising the risk of a grave accident. Likhachev said Russia had prepared a "comprehensive plan" for the phased commissioning of the plant but it could only be implemented if all military threats were removed. The facility was occupied by Russia in March 2022, shortly its troops entered Ukraine at the start of the war. It has six reactors, the last of which stopped generating electricity in September 2022. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
CNA
42 minutes ago
- CNA
Taiwan accuses China of carrying out 'provocative' military patrol near island
TAIPEI: Taiwan accused China on Friday (Jun 6) of raising tensions in the region with a "provocative" military patrol involving warplanes and warships near the island, an unusual public rebuke in what are typically routine accounts of Chinese military activity. Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, has complained of repeated Chinese military drills and patrols nearby. Since President Lai Ching-te took office last year, China has held three major rounds of war games. Taiwan's defence ministry said that starting mid-afternoon Friday, it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft, including J-16 fighters, operating with warships to carry out "so-called joint combat readiness patrols" and "harass the airspace and seas around us". "The Ministry of National Defence stresses that these acts are highly provocative, fail to pay proper attention to the maritime rights of other countries, bring anxiety and threat to the region, and blatantly undermine the status quo in the region," it said. Taiwan regularly reports such Chinese "combat patrols", but does not generally attach such commentary to its statements. COAST GUARD DRILLS The patrol came one day after Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump spoke by telephone, with Xi telling Trump that the United States must "handle the Taiwan question with prudence". This is "so that the fringe separatists bent on 'Taiwan independence' will not be able to drag China and America into the dangerous terrain of confrontation and even conflict", Xi said, according to a Chinese government read-out of the call. China regularly calls Taiwan its most important and sensitive issue in relations with the United States, which is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself. China says democratically governed Taiwan is its "sacred territory" - a position the government in Taipei strongly rejects - and that it has a right to carry out drills in Chinese territory. Lai, who last month marked a year in office, is hated by Beijing, which calls him a separatist and has rebuffed his repeated offers for talks. Lai says only Taiwan's people can decide their future, and that the government is determined to ramp up defence spending and strengthen its military. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. On Sunday, Lai will attend drills in the southern city of Kaohsiung for Taiwan's coast guard, whose ships would be pressed into service in combat roles in the event of war with China.
