Beijing: China on Thursday said that the United States is worthy of the name of the "empire of wiretapping" and "empire of secret stealing" and asked the country to immediately stop the stop its malicious cyber activities.

According to Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said, "China condemns such malicious cyber activities by the U.S. government. We demand that the U.S. offers an explanation and immediately stop such irresponsible behaviour."

Multiple reports suggest that multiple Chinese scientific research institutions have been under cyber-attack from the US National Security Agency (NSA).

The NSA has installed Trojan horse programs inside at least over a hundred important information systems in China. To date, many such programs are still running and sending intelligence back to the NSA.

Zhao called the United States a well-known habitual offender regarding cyber secret stealing. Citing a previous report from China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team website, he said, "In 2020, China captured more than 42 million malicious computer program samples. And 53.1 percent of the programs from overseas were traced to the United States."

"The United States doesn't even let its own citizens off the hook concerning cyber secret stealing. According to a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, over the past year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted 3.4 million searches on digital data of U.S. citizens without any warrant," Xinhua quoted Zhao as saying.

While pointing out the relevant reports, Zhao said that Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has coordinated with the United States to conduct cyber-attacks and steal secrets.

"This shows the United States and its core allies have become the axis of global cyber secret stealing," he added.

Zhao said that in the face of doubts and opposition from the international community, the United States did not restrain its large-scale cyber secret stealing behaviour, instead, it expanded its national defence budget regarding cyber activities, enlarged cyber troops, and conducted various cyber warfare drills, Xinhua reported.