Military not linked to attacks on Google

By Ai Yang in Beijing and Ju Chuanjiang in Shandong (China Daily)

Experts, educators also dismiss reports of schools' involvement

Senior Chinese military experts and educators on Friday dismissed new reports of investigations that suggest previous cyber attacks on Internet search giant Google were linked to Chinese schools and the military.

In a Thursday report, The New York Times (NYT) linked two Chinese educational institutions - Lanxiang Vocational School based in Jinan, Shandong province and Shanghai Jiaotong University - to the online attacks that also targeted American corporations.

The newspaper also cited Lanxiang's ties with the Chinese military and Baidu, the major Chinese online search engine and Google competitor.

Google jolted Sino-US ties with its Jan 12 announcement that it had faced a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" in mid-December that allegedly originated from inside China.

Pan Zheng, a senior expert in US strategy at National Defense University, told China Daily the Google attacks "had nothing to do with the Chinese government and military".

Pan said the search engine's accusation is inadequate. "Even if the hacking location was confirmed to be inside China, it is still different from saying the attacks are backed by China."

The NYT report also said that "if supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources".

Major General Luo Yuan, who is with the Academy of Military Sciences, said that allegations linking the attacks with the Chinese government and military are irresponsible.

"China has on many occasions reiterated that it opposes hackings of any form and such activities are strictly prohibited by law. Its military would not go against the rules," Luo said.

"People can easily take advantage of a location, they use it as their disguise and divert attention elsewhere, to a supposedly more apparent direction."