China opposes U.S. deployment of cyber forces in neighboring countries: FM spokesperson

BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- China opposes the U.S. deployment of cyber forces in China's neighboring countries and condemns the U.S. disinformation campaign, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Thursday when asked to comment on U.S. cyber theft targeting Japan.

According to WikiLeaks, the United States carried out cyber theft against 35 Japanese targets, including some members of the Japanese cabinet.

The spokesperson said the U.S. government has not only carried out large-scale, systematic and indiscriminatory cyber theft against other countries in the world, but also attempted recently to deploy cyber forces to relevant countries in the name of capacity-building cooperation to infiltrate these countries' cyber system.

The U.S. has even resorted to media and other forms of disinformation of so-called "Chinese hackers" in order to induce or coerce relevant countries, particularly those around China, to receive U.S. cyber force deployment, which is akin to "inviting a wolf into their house," given the fact that the U.S. leads the world in hacking technology, the spokesperson said.

"This not only endangers their own cybersecurity, but also turn themselves into a bridgehead or springboard for U.S. government's cyber attacks against China without their knowledge," the spokesperson added.

Noting that cyber military forces are different from conventional military forces, the spokesperson said they are strategically important.

The nature of U.S. deployment of cyber forces is no different from deploying intermediate-range missiles and anti-missile systems next to China, the spokesperson said, adding that the move is essentially tying China's neighbors to the chariot of the U.S., which gravely harms China's strategic security interest and can easily cause major risks of miscalculation.

"We hope the international community, in particular China's neighbors, will judge for themselves what the true intentions of the U.S. are," the spokesperson said.