China rejects US claim of vaccine research theft

accused the US on Thursday of smearing China after Washington alleged Chinese hackers were attempting to steal research on developing a vaccine against the coronavirus.

The claims have added fuel to tensions between the global superpowers, who have traded barbs over the origin of the pandemic.

US authorities said on Wednesday that Chinese hackers were trying to obtain coronavirus data on treatments and vaccines, warning the effort involved Chinese governmentaffiliated groups and others.

The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said China’s efforts posed a “significant threat” to the US response to Covid-19.

“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to such smearing,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular press briefing. “Judging from past records, the US has carried out the largest cybertheft operations worldwide,” Zhao said. He stressed that Beijing has significant achievements of its own in the fight against the pandemic. China is “also leading the world in Covid-19 vaccine research and treatment”, and has more reason to worry about cyber espionage itself, Zhao said.

He added that the country has cracked down on cyber-hacking, and that any cyber attack hindering the global fight against the pandemic should be condemned by people around the world.

Responding to American

President Donald Trump’s reference to Covid-19 as the “plague from China”, Zhao said the US should stop blaming and discrediting others, and focus on their own prevention and control work.

The pandemic has worsened tensions between the two countries, which have both accused each other of failing to contain the outbreak.

More than 4.3m people around the world have been infected by Covid-19, with over 83,000 US deaths and 4,600 deaths in China, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Washington, which has confirmed almost 1.4 million US cases of the virus and more than 84,000 deaths, has increasingly blamed Beijing for the outbreak that first emerged in China late last year.