404 — China finally gets a chance to bitch about the hacking of telephony giant Huawei

In what must seem like just desserts, the Chinese finally get to bitch about someone hacking their systems for a change, in this case telephony giant Huawei. That said, the rebuke was blunted in large part due to Mrs. Obama's current visit to China. China plays a significant role in my forthcoming novel, 404, as host to hacking stations for North Korea. Check out this story from The New York Times.

After Reports on N.S.A., China Urges End to Spying

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — The Chinese government called on the United States on Monday to explain its actions and halt the practice of cyberespionage after news reports said that the National Security Agency had hacked its way into the computer systems of China’s largest telecommunications company.

The reports, based on documents provided by the former security contractor Edward J. Snowden, related how the spy agency penetrated servers owned by the company, Huawei, and monitored communications by its senior executives in an effort to discover whether the executives had links to the Chinese military. The operation also sought to exploit the company’s technology and gain access to the communications of customers who use Huawei cellphones, fiber optic cables and network hubs.

American officials have been working to block Huawei from entering the American telecommunications market because of concerns that its equipment could provide Chinese hackers with a “back door” for stealing American corporate and government secrets.

Huawei, founded by a former People’s Liberation Army engineer, has been largely frozen out of North America despite the company’s insistence that it is independent of the Chinese government. The documents did not reveal whether the American spy agency had found evidence that Huawei was less independent than it claims.

The news reports were published on Saturday by The New York Times and Der Spiegel, and the documents are included in a book by Der Spiegel, “The N.S.A. Complex.”

As with Mr. Snowden’s previous disclosures, the latest revelations about American cyberespionage are likely to complicate efforts by the Obama administration to expose and deter Chinese cyberespionage. Mr. Snowden told a Hong Kong newspaper last year that the spy agency had hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies and network hubs, including computers and servers at Tsinghua University, one of China’s most prestigious schools. Those claims were not independently verified.

On Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed “serious concern” over the news reports about the N.S.A. and Huawei, and he called on both countries to step up efforts to end the spying.

“We always believe that Internet communication technology should be employed for a country’s social-economic development, rather than Internet espionage and monitoring,” said Hong Lei, a spokesman for the ministry. “China has also consistently advocated that the international community should work together to draw up relevant regulations to build a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace.”

Reaction to the news reports was relatively muted in the Chinese state news media, with limited coverage on the nation’s main news portals.

The relative absence of invective may have to do with timing. Michelle Obama arrived here on Thursday with her mother and two daughters for a weeklong tour of China, and President Xi Jinping met with President Obama on Monday afternoon on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit at The Hague.