The Dutch Prime Minister and China’s President discussed Chinese state-sponsored surveillance on Wednesday in Beijing.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands stated that he attempted to discuss with President Xi Jinping a cyber surveillance incident that his country had previously attributed to the Chinese government.

The intelligence agency MIVD reported last month that Chinese state-backed cyber agents gained access to a Dutch military network last year. The agency characterized this as part of a trend of Chinese political espionage against the Netherlands and its allies.

According to documents, Facebook may have used user devices to eavesdrop on competitors.

It was the first time the Dutch publicly attributed cyber espionage to China, as tensions between the two countries escalated regarding national security.

Furthermore, they are embroiled in a dispute regarding export restrictions to China of high-tech semiconductor equipment manufactured by the Dutch behemoth ASML.

Beijing asserts its opposition to all types of cyberattacks and routinely refutes allegations of cyber espionage.

Officials from the United States and the United Kingdom levied charges, imposed sanctions, and accused Beijing on Monday of conducting a massive cyber espionage campaign that allegedly affected defense contractors, legislators, academicians, and journalists, among others, as well as businesses and organizations.

US and British intelligence agencies assert that the Chinese Ministry of State Security purportedly controls the covert intelligence organization APT31.

The fourteen-year cyber campaign reportedly compromised vast quantities of sensitive data, including “economic plans, intellectual property, and trade secrets belonging to American businesses.” The PRC may have received such data.

“Of course, we discuss all challenging subjects,” Rutte told reporters regarding the Beijing discussions, including cyberattacks.

“The Netherlands has, of course, openly attributed this to China.” Our MIVD identified China’s involvement in the attack on the Dutch Ministry of Defense. Thus, I did indeed debate it.

The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation also established a connection between APT31 and an espionage cyber campaign targeting the parliamentary information systems of the country in 2020–2021, the agency reported earlier on Wednesday.

A novel phishing attack conceals a keylogger within a bank payment notification.

Tensions have escalated between Beijing and Western powers regarding cyber espionage concerns, as Western intelligence agencies raise the alarm more frequently about Chinese state-sponsored hacking.

Chinese diplomats stationed in the United States and Britain dismissed the accusations as unjustified, while the Chinese Embassy in London described them as “wholly fabricated and malicious slanders.”

In recent years, China has also started to denounce purported Western cyber operations.

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