China has summoned the US ambassador in Beijing to protest against the Obama administration’s landmark move to charge five Chinese military officers with stealing trade secrets through cyber commercial espionage.
Xinhua, China’s state news agency, said the foreign ministry summoned Max Baucus, the relatively new US ambassador, on Monday night to make a “solemn representation” over the criminal charges. A US embassy spokesman confirmed that Mr Baucus had met the foreign ministry on Monday evening in Beijing.
The US justice department on Monday charged five officers from Unit 61398, a Shanghai-based division of the People’s Liberation Army, with hacking into computers at Alcoa, Allegheny Technologies, US Steel, Westinghouse Electric, SolarWorld, and the United Steelworkers Union.