Washington DC [US], December 19 : Principal Deputy Spokesperson of the US Department of State, Vedant Patel on Wednesday (local time) in reference to allegations of China's espionage activities in the US, said that a country should obey the local laws when they are operating abroad.
On being asked about what steps was the US taking on China's establishments of Confucius Institutes in US universities, the operation of overseas undercover police stations, and hacking training institutes, Patel said that they are aware of such reports and Chinese activities that amount to transnational repression.
"So I'm certainly not going to get into results, and I certainly wouldn't speak to something like this in specificity. But of course we're aware of these kinds of reports, and we're certainly aware of the lines of efforts that have been undertaken by the PRC to conduct what we would view as things that would be consistent with transnational repression as it relates to its own people overseas. And our view is that any country abroad should be obeying and obliging with the local law enforcement and local laws, but beyond that, I'm just not going to get into that specifically," he said.
The FBI and the US's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on November 13 issued a warning that the breach, initially discovered late last month, has since uncovered a wide-reaching and serious cyber espionage operation.
Investigators now believe that a cyberattack on US telecommunications systems, initially thought to be targeting American presidential campaigns, is much more extensive. It is likely part of a broader effort by China to conduct widespread surveillance on the United States, as reported by Voice of America.
In a statement, the two agencies confirmed that their investigation has revealed Chinese-affiliated hackers infiltrated the networks of several US telecommunications companies, potentially gaining access to a vast amount of sensitive data. Furthermore, the hackers appear to have successfully copied information that was requested by US law enforcement through court orders.
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