Mandiant's report prompts fierce response from Chinese authorities, advocates more Cyber-security

China has regularly been accused of being the main responsible behind the growing wave of cyber-attacks against the West. In April 2012, Chinese government's Spokesman Yang Yugun stated that his country's Ministry of National Defense "received an average of over 80,000 cyber-attacks from overseas each month."

In May 2012, US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told his Chinese counterpart General Liang Guanglie that "it's extremely important that (the two countries) work together to develop ways to avoid any miscalculation or misperception that could lead to crisis in this area." Gen. Guanglie agreed "it is correct for all the nations to place such great importance (…) on cyber-security." At the meeting, the Chinese official stressed, however, that he could "hardly agree with the proposition that the cyber-attacks directed to the United States are directly coming from China," and that Mr Panetta agreed on his point that "we cannot attribute all the cyber-attacks in the United States to China."

The word "all" drew the attention of DiploNews' analysts who interpreted this as a possible involuntary and partial acknowledgement that China does conduct cyber-attacks against the United States. And it is quite likely that the United States does reciprocate, our analysts thought. There has been heating debate over the last few days about the Mandiant's report that affirmed a large number of cyber-attacks which have been targeting the West over the last months originated from a Shanghai-based building which is allegedly the property of China's People Liberation Army (PLA).

The Chinese government forcefully refuted these allegations and reiterated it is "firmly opposing cyber-attacks." This development took place in the wake of the signing by United States President Barack Obama of an executive order that aims at improving United States' "critical infrastructure cyber-security." While the two countries keep sending back the accusations to each other, at least they agree the cyber-attacks "affect both nations": from United States' perception that it constitutes a major national security threat; and from China's perception that it negatively impacts the trust-lacking bilateral relationship.

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