China 'gravely concerned' on cybersnooping by US, called world's 'biggest villain'

China said on Sunday that it was “gravely concerned” over cyberattacks by US government agencies after new allegations that they had snooped on Chinese targets.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the latest reports “again proved that China is the victim of cyberattacks, and we have already lodged representations to the US side”, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The remarks followed new claims by former US spy Edward Snowden that US spies had hacked the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing -- home to one of six “network backbones” that route all of mainland China’s Internet traffic -- and the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which operates one of the Asia-Pacific region’s largest fibre-optic networks.

Earlier on Sunday, Xinhua called the United States the world’s “biggest villain” for IT espionage, after the new allegations emerged.

“These, along with previous allegations, are clearly troubling signs,” Xinhua said in a commentary.

“They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyber attacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age,” it said.

The comments came after the United States slapped an arrest warrant on Snowden on Friday, and White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said the charges “present a good case for extradition under the treaty, the extradition treaty between the United States and Hong Kong”.