Washington urged to stop making groundless claims against Beijing

Beijing blasted on Monday the false narratives, fabricated by the United States, on China's so-called "espionage activities", urging Washington to stop framing others and avoid bringing more chaos and turbulence to the world.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian made the remarks in response to a recent Wall Street Journal report claiming that Beijing is conducting espionage activities on what Western governments say is "an unprecedented scale" to undermine rival states and bolster the country's economy.

Lin questioned the factual basis of the report at a daily news conference, saying that for some time, a very few Western media outlets have been peddling disinformation on the so-called espionage activities of China without presenting any facts or evidence, just assumptions and speculation.

The spokesman said he noted that the US Central Intelligence Agency recently posted on social media instructions in Chinese on how to contact it online, in an attempt to lure Chinese personnel to be informants.

China lodged a strong protest against the move, which seriously infringes on its national interests, Lin said.

"We will resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by external anti-China forces and defend national sovereignty, security and development interests," he emphasized.

"The CIA has long been using all kinds of despicable methods" to steal secrets of other countries, interfere in their internal affairs and subvert state power in those countries, Lin said.

Washington has never stopped its espionage activities against Beijing and has also long been conducting massive surveillance and secret theft against its allies, he said.

While blatantly carrying out spying activities worldwide, the US makes unwarranted spying accusations against other countries, which is a clear misrepresentation of the facts, the spokesman said.

The US needs to immediately correct its wrongdoings, he added.

Also on Monday, Lin urged the US to stop using cybersecurity issues to vilify China.

A US government panel reportedly plans to investigate how a hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon, whose members the US has alleged are Chinese, breached several US telecommunications networks, seeking to spy on prominent Americans including former US president Donald Trump and associates of the presidential-election campaign of US Vice-President Kamala Harris.

"The US seems to be enthusiastic about creating various types of 'typhoons'," Lin said, adding that the so-called Volt Typhoon hacking group previously hyped up by the US was proved with solid evidence to be an international ransomware group.

The real intention behind the false US narratives about the origin tracing of cyberattacks is to frame China, he said, urging the US to stop irresponsible moves that blame the victim and halt its cyberattacks globally.

zhoujin@chinadaily.com.cn