Sign up for Next China, a weekly email about where the nation is and where it will go next.
The Chinese military is believed to have trained a group of hackers to carry out cyber attacks on nearly 200 Japanese research institutions and companies, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing unidentified individuals in a police investigation.
Investigators found that a member of the Communist Party of China made contracts under a false name for rental servers in Japan that were used in the attacks on the Japanese space agency JAXA in 2016, the broadcaster said on Tuesday.
Investigators believe the cyber attacks were carried out by a group known as Tick under the instruction of the People’s Liberation Army. Two men involved in server contracts have left Japan, NHK said.
A 30-year-old Chinese system engineer who is a member of the Chinese Communist Party has been sent to prosecutors for his alleged involvement in the attacks, Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed investigative sources.
The reported allegations, the most recent in a series of similar incidents, come amid increasingly difficult relations between Japan and its largest trading partner. The issue of ties with China dominated the agenda at Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s summit with US President Joe Biden in Washington last week.
China rebuffs Biden and Suga after clear comments between the US and Japan
Japanese Cabinet Secretary-General Katsunobu Kato declined to comment on the investigation. He said in a regular news briefing on Tuesday that cyber attacks on infrastructure were becoming increasingly organized, and the government said the response to such incidents was a major problem.
Responding to a question in the NHK report about the alleged suspect in a regular news item in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he was unaware of the case. Later, Wang added that cyberspace is made up of many actors whose origins are difficult to trace and warn against the realization. accusations in cyber security cases.
“In the designation of an incident, there must be sufficient evidence. It cannot be based on presumption “, he said. “We are against other countries that are penetrating our cybersecurity or we are using this issue to serve its contemptuous political agenda.”
Cyber attacks are a common threat to all countries, and China has also been a victim, he added.
A JAXA spokesman confirmed that it had been the subject of an unauthorized access that appeared to be a cyber attack, but was not damaged, according to NHK. Japan has sought to strengthen its cyber defense in recent months.
– With the assistance of Go Onomitsu and Colum Murphy
(Updates with the comments of the Chinese Foreign Ministry from the seventh paragraph)