China state media lashes US tech firms for ‘stealing secrets’

Chinese state media lashed out at Google, Apple and other US technology companies today, calling on Beijing "to punish severely the pawns" of the US government for monitoring China and stealing secrets.

US companies such as Yahoo, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Facebook threaten the cyber-security of China and its internet users, said the People's Daily on its microblog, in comments echoed on the front page of the English-language China Daily.

It is not clear what sparked this latest round of vitriol, nor what information the US firms are alleged to have stolen. But Chinese media have repeatedly attacked American tech companies for aiding the US government's cyber espionage since National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revealed widespread spying programmes including PRISM.

Under PRISM, the NSA seized data from companies such as Google and Apple, according to revelations made by Mr Snowden a year ago.

Chinese state-owned firms have since begun dispensing with the services of US companies such as IBM, Oracle and Cisco in favour of domestic technology. As a result, Mr Snowden's revelations may cost US companies billions of dollars, analysts say.

“US companies including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc are all coordinating with the PRISM programme to monitor China,” the People’s Daily said on its official microblog.

“To resist the naked internet hegemony, we will draw up international regulations, and strengthen technology safeguards, but we will also severely punish the pawns of the villain. The priority is strengthening penalties and punishments, and for anyone who steals our information, even though they are far away, we shall punish them!” it said.

Google has already had problems in China this week. On Monday, a China censorship watchdog said Google services were being disrupted ahead of Wednesday’s 25th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

"We cannot say this more clearly - the (US) government does not have access to Google servers - not directly, or via a back door, or a so-called drop box," said Google chief legal officer David Drummond in a statement today. "We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law."

In December, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo and other Internet companies issued an open letter to US president Barack Obama and Congress to reform and introduce restrictions on surveillance activities.

Reuters